Beaches, Trees, Tomatoes and Missionary Work

So this week we took the Hermana's to a few beaches on P-Day. One of the Hermana's is going home next week and this is her last P-Day so we wanted to spend some time with her and her companion. While we were there we took the opportunity to take some pictures of our nametags in cool settings. This is something the missionaries here do and it is pretty cool. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Here is a great picture of the Hermana's showing their love for all of us ; )

I forgot to share a cool thing that happened a few weeks ago. Elder Nonu was transferred to the city to lead another zone there and so Elder Dominguez and I were Comps for a day until his new companion, Elder Orosco, arrived. We went to the bus station to pick him up and while we were waiting a young man looked at me and said "hi Elder" I went over and asked his name and he said "Helaman" He didn't speak much English  and after asking him if he was a member in Spanish  and he said no, I then called Elder Dominguez over to talk with him. Turns out someone gave his Mom a Book of Mormon years ago and she named him after the Prophet Helaman. He had no idea who he was other than he was a person in the Book of Mormon. He told us he was on his way to Salina Cruz, about 3 hours away, to get married. He said that he was an alcoholic and wanted to change for his new wife and asked us if we thought we could help him. We told him that if it was OK with him we would have the missionaries in Salina Cruz call him. He gave us his number and we passed it on. Forward a couple of weeks and your Mom gets a call from a sick missionary in Salina Cruz. After she helps him he says "Tell Elder DeWolf thanks for the referral, Helaman is a great contact and is on track to be baptized soon" It is crazy how the Lord works and what he can accomplish through us if we will just let him.

Another cool story. We had a young man who is preparing for a mission as soon as he finishes school this year come to our house Sunday after church for lunch. He is the only member in his family and so we asked him to share his conversion story with us. He said that when he was about 10 years old he started asking questions about the Lord and why we are here and where do we go after this life, etc. He had some other christen missionaries at his house and he asked them "what happens when we die?" They told him our spirit leaves our body and our body stays here and that you will be a spirit in heaven. He said that didn't feel right to him. They invited him to come to church with them and he told them he would keep looking. So he did, he talked with many other people from different churches and it just never felt or sounded right to him. He then started praying for the Lord to send him two people to teach him. He was in the park one day dancing, he is a break dancer,  

and he saw a pair of sister missionaries. He then heard a voice say "don't talk to them" so he didn't. He kept seeing them and kept thinking the same thing. Then one night after praying for help he had a dream and in the dream he was told "These are the two you asked for, talk with them" The next day the Sisters came by the park again and this time they walked up to him and introduced themselves and asked him his name. He asked them his question, What happens to our body when we die? He knew the answer they gave him was the answer he had been praying for and so he agreed to meet with them. The Sisters couldn't teach him at his home because his parents were not to happy about him meeting with them. They finally let them come over and when he asked his parents for permission to be baptized they said no. He continued to pray and then went to his parents again and they said if that was what he felt he needed then they would approve. When the Sisters went to get the form signed by his parents, you need the parents permission if the child is younger than 18, they were talking with his Mom and told her he was very special. She quickly said "No, he is not special" Later they asked him why his Mom would say that and he told them that before he was born his Mom was visiting Mexico City and a stranger asked here to follow him somewhere. He took her to a beautiful white building surrounded by flowers and asked her to wait there by the flowers a little while. He then returned and told her that she would have a son and that he would be "very special". She went home and soon after was pregnant with this young man, who by the way is named Samuel. I can tell you from spending a couple of hours with him that he is indeed a very special young man and is very wise for his years.

 
Last story, we had our friend Mario and his family over for dinner last night and the Elders taught them and set up a follow up appointment for this Saturday. This our first "real" experience with the missionaries teaching someone from the start. It is exciting and we have no idea where it will lead but we would appreciate if you would keep Mario and his family in your prayers.
 
Three weeks and three days ago we planted some tomato plants from seed and they are now over 10" tall. It is amazing living in a "greenhouse"

 

 

Lastly. I promised to provide pictures of our driftwood Christmas trees. Here is one of the two we have. It is about 5 1/2 feet tall and has a starfish as the star. The first picture is the tree with no lights and then the tree with lights. The other tree is not quite finished yet so it will show up in a blog after Thanksgiving.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family in the US and Happy Mexican Revolution Day to all our neighbors here in Mexico. We are looking forward to the parade, and of course the public service announcement by loudspeaker around 6:30 am again ; )

We love all of you and thank you once again for all your prayers and support.

Elder and Hermana DeWolf

Hey you, Save me a piece of that corn

This last week was interesting. We went with a member and his wife out to their little farm and picked corn one morning. Then we went to their house and shucked and shelled the corn, then cut it off the cob. Then we ground the corn to make masa. They then made a corn drink/soup called atole that was fantastic and we ate that with some of the alote (corn on the cob) for lunch. Then we made tamales using the fresh ground corn and then we used the remainder of the corn to make a sweet corn bread/cake. We ate the tamales and corn bread for dinner that day. It was AWESOME!! Food that you pick in the morning and consume in four different ways by that evening is really cool and very nutritious. However since Hermana DeWolf is sensitive to corn she ended up needing to be close to home the next day, LOL.

We only got to the beach one morning this week and we went to our local beach, Bahia Santa Cruz, where the water is calm. I snorkeled around and saw some cool fish and an eel. I love diving down after the little puffer fish and watching them swim as fast as they can to get away from me ; ) I found a cool shell while I was swimming. We will probably need a truck to bring home all the cool things we are buying and finding here ; )

Sunday we visited the Branch in Santa Maria Huatulco. It was the first time we were able to visit there. They asked me to speak and introduce us and bear my testimony. I was able to do it all in Spanish. Here is my testimony in Spanish. It has increased in size since my first attempt in my farewell talk in church prior to our leaving for our mission.

Me gustaría compartir mi testimonio 

Yo sé que José Smith fue un profeta 

Sé que la plenitud del evangelio se restauró a la tierra 

Sé que Thomas S Monson es  un profeta

Yo sé que Jesucristo vive

Sé que Jesucristo es tu Salvador y el mío 

Sé que la Expiación de Jesucristo es real.

Yo soy, como dicen las escrituras, un hombre cambiado a causa de la Expiación.

Sé que el Libro de Mormón es la palabra de Dios 

Yo sé que nuestro Padre Celestial nos conoce y nos ama 

Es mi testimonio

En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen

You can use Google translate and figure out the parts that you don’t understand.

Sunday was my best day in church so far. I probably understood about 20% of what was being said and what was going on. My headache was not near as bad at the end of the three hours as it usually is ; )

 

Provecho !!!! 

 

 

 

Night Drives, Waves Crashing and Halloween

It has been a couple of weeks since the last blog. Blogging seems to be like keeping a journal has been for me my whole life. I start with the intention of writing daily or weekly and then struggle. I recommit today to keep up with this blog.

 

The past couple of weeks have been crazy as each week seems to be here ; ) We went on a temple trip with the Huatulco Branch, however at the last minute we decided to drive and take the District President with us. We left around 8:30 pm Friday and arrived at the temple at 2:30 am on Saturday. We parked in the parking lot and Hermana DeWolf and I slept in the car while President Pineda went in and slept on the tile floor of the local ward building that shares a parking lot with the temple. I had also slept a little in the back seat during the drive, however I don't fit very well in the back seat, or the front seat, of a Honda City and ended up a little sore and stiff the next day ; )

 

We got up at 6:00 am to get ready and be in the temple by 6:30 am. I was a little confused as to why we went but Hermana DeWolf felt strongly we should. Toward the end of the session one of the Branch members almost passed out and had to be taken out to get medical help in the lobby. After the session Hermana DeWolf went to help and we ended up staying with and monitoring him for the next 3 hours until he stabilized. I was able to see after the fact that the Lord prompted her so that this member could get the care he needed in a time of crisis.

That is how the Lord works, often we don't understand why we're prompted to do things but later we see that it is either to help us or help someone else. I am so blessed to have a companion, who like her mother, is very close to the spirit.

We had a couple of interesting p-days. We visited a couple of new beaches and found out all beaches are not calm and smooth like Santa Cruz. The first beach is called Bocona Beach. It is near a small fishing village where all the people come out, and working together, fish in the morning.

 

 

 

We are working on a Christmas tree out of driftwood and once we get it decorated we will post some pictures. We were gathering the driftwood at Bocona and on our way back Hermana DeWolf got rolled by a wave she didn't see coming and lost her sun glasses. I was laughing when the wave hit her and then, since I was a ways down the beach, had to sprint as fast as I could to help her when it looked like she wasn't going to be able to get up and was going to continue to get pounded. I haven't run that fast in a long time ; ) She is now not allowed to get that far in front of me again ; )

 

Here she is on the way to get driftwood at the exact spot.

 

 

For Halloween we made a Melon-o-lantern out of a watermelon and really enjoyed it. We didn't have any kids come around trick or treating but we were prepared just in case.

 

 

 

We teach an English class every Tuesday and Wednesday evening at the church and have had good attendance. We have a couple of non member teenage girls attending and last week they also came to institute class on Thursday. We are still working on our friendship with the people form Colorado we met at the beach and the man we gave a BOM to who has a jewelry shop at the beach. All in all we are working with 5 investigators. This is really not a part of our mission but we are trying to do our best at finding investigators anyway.

One of our assignments is to do "house checks". We inspect the houses for cleanliness and organization. All of you who know Hermana DeWolf well understand that she has always had a very clean and organized home and it is no different here. Each of the Elders and Hermanas whom houses we check have been to our apartment and I have told them all this is what we expect when we come to your house ; ) We bake a dozen chocolate chip cookies the night before and then we have a list of 10 items we check and a few bonus/surprise items. For each one that passes they get a cookie. Hermana DeWolf begs them to keep it clean so that I don't end up eating all the extra cookies ; )

Here is one set of Elders in front of their home.

The last beach we visited this week for P-Day was San Augustin Beach where I took my turn getting rolled by a wave. I decided to go swim in a "red Flag" area of the beach. For those who don't know, there are three flag colors, Green-safe for all swimmers, yellow-use precaution, red-strong experienced swimmers only and black-no swimming. I swam out a ways and realized that it was not fun just a lot of hard work to keep from drowning, so I headed back to shore. I got close enough to stand up and as I stood up the wave was retreating with a strong undercurrent. I was handling it ok when I looked back and here came another wave. I just relaxed and went with it, which means I got rolled a few times and came up covered in sand and shells. I then was able to walk out. However Hermana DeWolf has informed me that I will no longer be swimming when there is a Red Flag out ; )

 

Mexico is beautiful, the food is fantastic and the people fun and friendly.

This has been our experience and we love the people here. We love you all and are grateful for your love and friendship, most importantly for your continued prayers and support.

God loves us all and is mindful of our needs. We just have to ask and trust His timing.

Elder and Hermana DeWolf