02 23 2015

Buenas tardes,

So before anything else, I have to wish a Happy Birthday to the world's best Papa. He has helped to sculpt me into the man that I am today because he introduced me to the wonderful game that I call Golf! He has taught me so much, and I hope that I can become half of the man that he is!!!

Love you Papa!!!!

La verdad esta semana pasado bien rápido!!! 

So the week started out normal. Everything was good normal on Tuesday. We had an absolutely incredible lesson with Enedina. She is the investigator that came to church without having even received a lesson. She has a son Noe, who is really interested in the church. He had a child die as a baby, and has had so many wonderful questions about where she is, and what is going to happen to her. This was the highlight of Tuesday.

Then comes Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I went on splits with Elder Jones, all day Wednesday, and then on Thursday and Friday I was with Elder Zubietta the district leader. These days were so fun!!! I learned so much from both of them, and was able to get to know Elder Zubietta. 

Zubietta is a convert to the church, and has been a member for four years know. He knows more doctrine that just about every other missionary, and is so good at teaching. He was such a joy to be with for the two days that I was with him. There was only one problem with this. I only took clothes for the first day because I was told that I would be going home that night. This was horrible, but somewhat of a humbling experience, because I had to realize that there are a lot of families and people in Mexico that really do only have one pair of clothes. It was so wonderful, and being out and busy with other Elders made the week go by so fast!!!

So then we get to today. I had a very wonderful experience today. I was able to go to the temple and see Brother Kelsey. Brother Kelsey is a neighbor from Murray. I got permission from President to go and get lunch with him because he is painting at the Mexico City Temple. It was so cool to see and talk to him!!! It made the world seem so much smaller, and made home feel not so far away!

Other than this I don't have any really crazy stories for you this week. Everything in Mexico is going on, and life is pretty simple!!!

Love you all,

Les Quiero,

Elder Mason Millar

The picture is the grass that I am growing because I miss grass. That is after just 2 weeks!

02-16-2015

Hello Everyone,

So this week was a pretty good one. I had my birthday on Tuesday, and it was better that I imagined it would have been. 

We went and worked like normal, and then I invited all of the elders in the ward over to our house for pan y leche. I didn't hear that anything was going to be happening, so I figured I would make my own birthday fun!!!

We were out working, and had a lot of wonderful lessons, and then went home at about 8:30 to celebrate. I got home and all of the lights were off. I was pretty upset that no one was on time, But I went and opened up the door and turned on the lights, and the other four elders all jumped out and yelled "SURPRISE" I then saw the two cakes that they had bought sitting on the counter. It was so wonderful!!!

The tradition in Mexico after they sing to you they start chanting "que lo muerda" which means take a bite. So I then took a bite expecting my near fate, and had my face slammed into the cake. This was fun, and then we ate the cake. After cake I was informed that there would be nineteen birthday spankings given, but not just normal spankings. I was spanked nineteen times with only my underwear on. Man are elders so aggressive when they freely get to spank you!!!

This week we also had the opportunity to go to the temple again with another investigator. It is always so cool to go and see all that the church has done to help the missionary work down here!!! I also found out that the temple will be opening in October! I can`t wait to be able to go there! It is such a beautiful temple, and the feeling inside is one of my favorite feelings in the whole world!!!!

Other than that there was not much that went on! We had Stake conference this week, and then played basketball and got McDonald's breakfast again!!! McDonald`s breakfast is so wonderful! It tasted exactly the same as in the states, and makes me feel like I am not so far away!!!

I love you all, and Love this work!!!

Les Amo,

Elder Mason Millar

02-09-2015

Buenos tardes todos,

Well, this last week has been a pretty normal week other than yesterday. 

So some of you have asked what a normal day in the life of Elder Millar consists of, so here you have it.

Alarm goes off at 6:30, and my comp turned it off and gets into the shower. Then if I am feeling it (normally about twice or three times a week) I get up and work out. Then depending if I can call dibs fast enough I can get into the shower second so I don't have to wait for 40 minutes for the water to warm back up. After this we normally make pancakes or crepes or something good to eat because we are awesome! Then we "study" or try to study. It is kind of difficult with four elders in the same house. But we normally have about 5 to 10 minutes of goof off every hour. We then study more, and a little more, and then eat a snack and study more. 

Then at about 11:00-11:30 we start working. This normally consists of a lot of people not being home, so we end up contacting in the morning. Contacting in Mexico sucks!! Every house says the same things... I have my religion and respect yours, or un otro día.  It is quite obnoxious! But occasionally we find someone who doesn't just send us away.  

After this at 2 or 3 we have our lunch appt. In Mexico we don't have dinner appt. because in the culture lunch is their big meal for the day. Lunch normally consists of a soup of vegetables, or noodles, followed by some sort of meat. The food is good about 50% of the time, and is edible about 80% of the time. I haven't run into anything that I just haven't been able to handle, other than this nasty pumpkin crap the other day. But that was given to us to take home, so we just left it on the street hoping that the dogs would eat it. 

After lunch is normally when we have the majority of our lessons. This time of the day is normally pretty hard because they eat so much, and you feel like you are going to explode and want to take a nap! Lessons at this time of the day generally go pretty fast, and it doesn't feel like you are even doing anything.

We then return to the house at 9 because that is when President wants us home. We then plan for the next day, write in my journal,  and generally do stupid activities. We started playing a game called "what are the odds" and so far from this game two elders have no sideburns, and I have a shaved leg. Just the normal stupid things guys do! 

Then at 10:30 we try to go to bed if we aren't talking. We make it to bed on time every 4 out of 5 days, so that is nice. Then we repete the next day!! That is a normal day in the life of Elder Millar. 

So this week was pretty cool. We had a contact that we made on Saturday come to church yesterday. It was crazy though. We were just walking down the street and they asked us to help with visa papers because they were in English, and then all we said that we were missionaries and she asked what time church was and said she would be waiting! So we went by yesterday, and there she was waiting to go to church with us. After church she said she loved it, and was coming back, and wanted the lessons. She is chosen!!!

We also ran into this guy the other day who was quite racist towards the US, and told us for about 5 minutes how bad the US is, and that he hated it!!, it is always funny to run into people down here who have opinions, and want to make you feel bad!

Other than that not much has happened this week. Just a normal week of work. 

I love you all, 

Elder Mason Millar

02-02-2015 (3 Months in Mexico!)

Hello all,

Wow, so I hit three months in Mexico today! I can honestly say it feels like I have only been here for 2 weeks!

I can say that I am happier than I have been in my mission right now. I absolutely love this area, and love my comp! We work very well together, and struggle together. Like I said neither of us are great at Spanish, so we are both being stretched a lot! 

I have learned more in these last two weeks with this comp that I have in my entire mission when it comes to teaching with the Spirit. I have had to rely so strongly on the Spirit to help me to say what I need to in order for the investigators to be able to feel the Spirit and be in their conversion. 

This week I officially had my first investigator that we found come to church. It is the Familia Carrera. They are an older couple of 74 and 78 years old. They are the parents of someone that was being taught before I got here, and have been pretty receptive. They are kind of difficult to teach, because they are not very educated, and they have a hard time understanding. But the way that I have seen the Spirit open them up, and show to them that they can find joy in the church is just incredible!!!

I would like to invite all of you to work on helping the missionaries back at home with the work! Look for references, and be willing to do anything you can for them!!! And just feed them normal food! Everybody feeds us close to the same thing because they think it is the special meal to eat with the missionaries! Just pizza, or hamburgers, or if you really want to make them happy, spend the few extra dollars, and make steak!! O yeah, and don't think that if they say they don't want more that they don't like your food. Most of the time they are actually full!! A can not say how many times I have left the meal feeling like I was going to honestly explode because they made me eat so much!!  

That is my input of the week on making a missionary happy!!!

So there has not been much else happen this week, but we will be getting a new Elder in the house tomorrow, because Elder Noh is leaving. I Will let you all know how that is next week!!!

Love you all so much!!,

Les Quiero,

Elder Mason Millar