July 22-29th, 2013

hey guys,

thanks for the emails. sounds like the butler days went well and was a lot of work. it was also good to hear from dust.

this week was pretty average. we worked hard and found some really good new people to teach. the bad part was that they didn´t go to church. only one. but it´s ok because we have been working with the DIF and registro civil ( they are government orginazations here) so that we can  marry a couple we have been teaching. they are the parents of andres, a kid we baptized like three weeks ago. the problem is that the dad is from nicaragua and his pasport is expired and he would have to go to mexico city to renew it. the good thing is that we are in mexico and we can get around things like that with enough connections in the registro civil haha. it looks like they will get married this week and then margarita, his wife, will get baptized on saturday. the bishop told us he doesn´t want us baptizing on sundays anymore cause it gets in the way of ward council haha. i was tempted to tell him that when they start having ward council more than once a month we´ll stop baptizing on sunday haha. but i held my tongue and accepted it haha. sometimes the members are frustrating because they don´t work much in the obra misional but they are really good to give us food so it´s hard to complain. we keep working alot with the converts but it is tough, sometimes they are just so lazy haha or don´t understand why it´s important to go to church. we have been knocking a lot of doors this week because the members don´t have any more referencias to give us. i have to think of some new ways to ask for references. you guys have any ideas??


tomorrow we are going to veracurz for the monthly zone lideres conference. i always enjoy it. it could be one of my last because i have a feeling that i am not going to be zone leader much longer, maybe one transfer more and then they will lower me down to trainer to finish the mish. it´s ok. i am ready for a change. 

sorry i didn´t take any pictures this week. sometimes i forget haha. well thanks for everything guys, i love you all and think and pray for you often.

love elder broadhead

July 15th-22nd, 2013

hey guys,

thanks for all the updates this week. mom, i can`t think of anything i need that i can`t get here. if anything, it would just be another long sleeve shirt, socks and that`s about it. dad, my companion has two weeks left. i feel like i have good spanish, but i definitely haven`t mastered it yet. the grammar yes, i have it mastered, but the accent and vocab words i have a long way to go. i`m excited to continue studying it when i get back. i think i have about gotten as far as i can get as a missionary. to learn more i need to do other types of activities to learn vocab and how to say stuff in other types of situations, like playing sports, or swimming or being around or driving cars, things like that. but for the things that i have to do as a missionary, i have it down pretty well. ash thats cool your roomate got called to veracruz. tell her that it is the hands down the best mission in the world and that we have the best president of mission there could be. tell her to get ready for the heat and get ready to work hard haha. i guess that means they are going to start sending american girls here, or is it a guy? tara, thanks for the emails, always they are classic and funny. 

well today we went to temazcal to see the dam and to eat pizza. they have an investigator there that has a pizzeria and he just charged us the price of the ingredients, it was really fun and good to be with the elders. seeing the dam made me miss the water. i think its one of the main things i miss, being able to swim and cool off, especially going out boating, oh i miss it so much hahaha. it`s going to be fun to be able to do it again one day. 

this week we had a zone conference in tuxtepec. oh my heavens it was such a good conference. i am thouroughly convinced that my mission president is going to be a setenta. his trainings are outstanding and he always has us on the edge of our seat and loving it. it was really spiritual, and i came back ready to keep working and going for more. it`s been one of my biggest desafios here. i get tired of some of the things, like companionship study haha. sometimes i get tired of doing it everyday, practicing over and over again our lessons haha. but i know that it is good for us and it`s something i have to do. but we are always free to choose our attitude. having a good attitutde about the things has been a big lesson i have learned as a missionary. it helps a lot. 

over these past few weeks i have definitely felt a lot more love for the people and i know that it is a huge achievement for me. it is still hard for me to open up to people and share my feelings but i feel like i have really grown to love these people here. after a year and a half i think i finally learned how to love. and that makes everything else, easier to do. 

i love you guys so much and i really do miss you. i am comforted by the fact that for the eternities we can be together. and i am more than willing to finish up these two years, giving the lord everything that i have left. thanks for it all and i`ll talk to you next week!

love elder broadhead

July 8th-15th, 2013

hey guys,

i always love getting your emails. it sure has been a long time and lots of things have happened while i´ve been gone. i like hearing about the things you guys do. 

well this week was pretty average. norma, the señorita that we were going to baptize had a family emergency and didn´t get home until like six o clock yesterday. when she got home we went over to see if she had enough energy to get baptized that night, but she said she was "in her days of the month" and now we have to wait until thursday to do the baptism jaja. this week it really was hard to find new people to teach. there are so many inactive converts here that we spend a lot of time working with them. we always ask for references and try to "find while we teach" but nothing turned out real well. the only fruit of our work was that two of the converts that were inactive went to church. on saturday we had a meeting with our bishop, the other missionaries in the ward and our ward mission leader, jorge. we had high hopes for the meeting but the bishop, like most mexicans, likes to talk and we spent most of the time listening to him go on about the needs of the ward. we tried to implement a ward mission plan, but on sunday they didn´t have ward council cause the bishop forgot to announce it haha. things are sometimes frustrating but in the mission i have learned a lot of patience. from my companions and the things that happen every day in the life of a missionary. it´s good. i know that before the misson i didn´t have any patience but i feel that i have improved bastante. i get angry less, and feel a lot more calm and at peace porque i understand the bigger plan. this week we are going to have zone conferences and so we will be gong to tuxtepec on friday. i love listening and learning from the presidente. we are the big hit in tierra blanca with our new sombreros haha. the members love making fun of us haha they call us tj´s (testigos de jehova) jehovas witnesses. i think i will be here another cambio because my companion is going home this cambio. if its like that, i will end up having six months here. it´s ok i like it here.

well there is not much more to report. i´m happy and working hard. if i was a sister missionary i´d just about be home haha. 18 months this week. 

love elder broadhead

July 1st-8th, 2013

hey guys,

thanks for all the updates, its always great to hear from you guys.

dad, we usually do divisiones two times a week. but the rest of the time we are in our own area. when i say divisiones i mean we change companions for 24 hours. i don´t know how you did the "splits" when you were zone leader?

this week was good. we baptized andres and rosenda. rosenda has 90 years old haha. she is my oldest convert but she is awesome. i can still remember the first time i met her. her whole family are members except her and i jokingly said hermana, you are on the only one left, when are you going to get baptized?? she shook her head and said, never, i´m catholic. and now she is so happy being a member of the church. the other convert, andres is an awesome little guy. he´s got 11 years and loves when we come to his house. he loves learning about the gospel and his little sister, melisa, thats seven is so cute haha. whenever we ask if she has any questions about what we have taught she always raises her little hand and asks some random question about a movie or why we are so white or something like that haha. andres´s older brother is still not member. every time he gets excited about the church his grandma tells him things that aren´t true and he gets desanimated. i don´t think that´s the right word but i don´t know how to say "desanimado." this week we are going to baptize norma. she is the aunt of one of my recent converts, roberto. she is awesome and excited to get baptized. she was gonna get baptized yesterday but she had to go be in charge of one of the voting houses because yesterday was voting day here in mexico. so it´ll have to be this sunday, her baptism.

this week we worked a lot with the recent converts. we have the goal of activating all of the converts of 2013 and it is hard. some of them really don´t want anything to do with the church. i sometimes wonder why they even got baptized in the first place. the culture and the way the people are down here has a lot to do with it, but it still seems weird to me. we saw that our work paid off because six of these recent converts went to church yesterday. i felt good. the bad part is that we spend a lot of time with these converts and don´t have a lot of time to look for new people to teach. so we don´t have anyone on date in two weeks. we´ll be hoping for a miracle this week. but i feel this is the way the lord wants us to be working now.

the other tidbit of news is that i am now wearing a sombrero haha. we wento to veracruz on tuesday for the counsil and president told me that he got permission for me and my companion to wear sombreros haha. so i bought me one and i love it. it helps protect me from the sun a ton. the members get a good laugh out of us wearing sombreros. 

well i´m loving life and hope you guys are too. wow a raspberry shake sounds sooo good haha. sometimes we buy little cups of icecream that they sell in the street on tricycles but it´s not the same hahaha.

love elder broadhead

June 24th-July 1st, 2013

Hey guys,

I enjoyed the emails this week. Tara that would have been really funny to see that bee/pool experience. That reminds me, i still have lots of fear of bees and this week we were teaching a lesson to some recent converts, and almost all the lessons we teach are outside of the houses, in the shade, and the people just put some chairs out, because the houses are like ovens, and its cooler outside. but we were teaching and a huge bee came out of nowhere, here there are huge black bees that scare the heck out of me, so i took off running and the converts started laughing so hard at me cause i´m scared of bees haha. 

I also got a good laugh out of that special needs experience that you had dad, when they collided. are they splitting the special needs boundaries or what? mom that´s good  that you are getting used to your new job. i´m sure you´re doing great. 

this week was good. we had a good baptismal service of the hermana rosa. She is already member, but her record got lost so we had to baptize her and confirm her again. but at the start of the week we went to her house to teach her and she tells us that she doesn´t want to get baptized until julio 21 and we´re like what happened hermana! but all we had to do was testify, we didn´t pressure her at all or anything, and she convinced herself that it was better to do it this week. i learned that we don´t have to pressure anyone, if we do our part, the spirit of the lord testifies and does his part. but the best part was that her mom, the old lady in the picture wants to get baptized now. we are also going to baptize andres this week. he is the kid of a family that is just starting to get active again. he´s excited for his baptism because he stayed to see the baptism of rosa, and liked it. we worked hard this week with the converts and the members. some of the members really caught on and are working good with us. it´s hard because some of the converts don´t want anything to do with the church. it´s hard for me to understand sometimes, why they got baptized in the first place. i am happy with the way we are working in the area, we are trying to implement this whole program in the zone but some of the elders are reluctant. we did a zone class this week that was good, the elders liked it. tomorrow we are going to veracruz for the monthly zone lideres council. my companion only has five weeks left but we are working really hard and taking advantage of every moment. it´s fun having another pair of missionaries in the ward, cause we get to work with each other a little more.

well there is not much else to say about this week, but thanks for everything and we´ll talk next week.

love elder broadhead