Loving Nino Artillero

Everyone,

Hey!! This week was pretty dang fast! We were pretty busy getting to know everyone and even had to do divisions with the Zone Leaders. It was pretty annoying to be honest because we were going to have our first coordination with the ward mission leader and I wasn't able to be there because I went to their area... 

I learned a lot this week though!! One thing that’s really nice about going to a new area is you get to meet a lot of new people and new people means new problems and more things to study and learn about. The mission is focusing a lot on being good teachers. We can’t get into a routine of teaching but we have to keep learning new and creative ways and the busier and active we are the better an instrument we can be in the hands of the Lord. 

This week i got to meet some investigators we have named Rodrigo and Lady (haha). They are super cool. They are married since 3 years and have a little kid. Rodrigo used to have a girlfriend a while back that was Mormon and she brought him to church and he really liked it. When they broke up he stopped going but he got a testimony of the church. When we teach them we focus more on his wife because she’s Catholic believer? Idk how they say that in English haha. Creyente?? Anyways she is pretty tough and I think she gets a little annoyed because Rodrigo is always trying to get her to read the pamphlets and book of Mormon but she feels pressured and only wants to do those things when she really wants to so that she can get something out of it. They own a tienda and are pretty busy in that so it’s hard to teach them. We have a lot of help from the ward when we teach them and I really like it. They are progressing just really slowly but I can’t imagine anything that would stop them from getting baptized eventually. 

Also yesterday we met a Jewish family!! Its super cool I've honestly never met a Jewish person here in Mexico. Besides one of the recent converts from Amilcingo who was in love with psalms haha. Anyways they follow the Law of Moses like perfectly. It’s super interesting. They have talked with missionaries a lot of different times but I’m pretty excited to give them another chance. I think if we were to just focus on the Book of Mormon we will be able to draw their interest because it’s got a lot of law of Moses and stuff from the old testament.

Well this week will be super good. I’m keeping busy and growing my testimony. I appreciate everything that every one of you has done for me in the past and I hope to be able to thank all of you when I get back more personally. 

Please keep my investigators in your prayers. Especially Lady so she can be motivated to read and find her own desires to learn more.  I love you all!! Take care and have a great week!!

Love

Elder Marrott

Domino Pizza

Feels like home!

New Area, Nino Artillero

Everyone,

So this week was crazy.. I’m not in Amilcingo anymore! I got moved to Nino Artillero with my companion. Idk why they changed us but they moved us here, the Elders that were here to Palmas and the sisters in Palmas to Amilcingo... Soooo they whitewashed 3 areas!  

It’s been busy trying to get used to this area.. The sad part is that we left like 6 almost secured baptisms and I’m going to miss them a lot. Hopefully we will still be able to go to their baptisms but we will see. 

Here the ward is really cool. The bishop is a convert of like 2 years or almost 3 and newly married with a little baby. He is super cool and loves to work with us. Our ward mission leader was an inactive for a long time but just came back to the church so its kind of slow with him as he has to relearn a lot of things but we still do a lot of work. The President of the Elder’s quorum is named Kendall!!! How crazy is that! They call him Hermano Kendall and I look like every time they say that..

The house here is like a 3rd the size of Amilcingo... It’s kinda lame. But it’s a lot of work and we will be super busy this whole week! Besides that there’s not much more to talk about. My companion got made district leader in the change too so that’s pretty cool. Doesn't really change anything besides he’s a lot busier in the night having to call everyone and stuff. 

The week is going to be busy and I’m excited! I love all of you and have a great week!

Love

Elder Marrott

Jose Luis and his family

Ward Mission leader from Amilcingo

Question and Answer...

Everyone,

Hey!!! This week was super good. Gonna start off answering the questions.

1.   What are the names of your street taco places?  Or do you have nick names for them? 

Umm there’s this one place that we go to every once and a while. They have this cool taco thing called a Palafox, but I think it’s just the name for it. So that’s what we call the place. It’s not very street like, but it’s really good.

2. Do you have any new pets?  Did you name the stray dogs?
There’s a kitten that lives below us that we bring up to hang out with us while we study! Super cute and we kind of named it chubacca and poncho. I mostly just call it gato haha.

3. How many book of Mormons do you carry with you each day to give away?
Usually just 1. If we have planned to give out more I’ll carry more.

4.  Do you like onions yet?
Not even close

5.  Are your white shirts still white? How good is the laundry?
They’re pretty good. I try not to wash by hand as much as I can.

6.   Do you ever have to take cold showers or is your electricity pretty consistent.
Everyone here uses gas. I’ve never seen electric heaters here.. But yeah I’ve taken quite a few cold ones. Usually we will heat up a bit of water to make it bearable.

7.  Do you hear about any other missionaries getting packages?  Have you been to the mission home to look for yourself?  What do the other US missionaries say about getting packages?
There’s some others that get packages. It’s really just random... Like I’ve said a million times you gotta put a virgin on it. Sometimes they take forever and sometimes they’re fast.

8.  How many lessons do you teach a week? Is your whole day scheduled or do you knock doors?
We try to have the whole day planned out. That’s ideal. We give a ton of lessons like every day. It really just depends on how many people are home.

9. Have you been on a bus with chickens?
No, Here is pure combi. Like vans that have a route and they do loops and you can just hop on and get off wherever. There have been dogs, rabbits, and chickens though.. Interesting. It’s not so bad here as other places though.

10.  Is your cereal the same?  Can you get Cheerios or Apple Jacks?
Yeah there’s cheerios, Cookie Crisp, Frosted Flakes, and a lot of others. At Walmart there are more but there’s pretty good selection

11.  How many investigators come to the gospel principles class (the one the missionaries teach?)
We have quite a few. The ward mission leader here always gives the lesson so we just participate. There’s usually like 20ish in total.

12.  Do you get called on to speak a lot at church meetings on Sunday?
I actually haven’t here. Idk if they have planned to ask us too.

So this week went really good! We did a ton of work and found a ton of new people to teach and we have like 6 people that are almost for sure going to get baptized. I’m pretty excited. It was a pretty big blessing to get left with the other half of the area because they had a lot more people to teach than we did. We are super busy and I love it. It’s suuuper tiring and good. 

This week one of our investigators Susana moved. It was sad to see her go because she’s cool and totally gonna get baptized. Anyways today I got an email from her and it so good. Here it is:

hola solo para darte las gracias por tus atenciones y por haberte puesto en mi camino gracias por elegir seguir a cristo y por confirmar la fe en jesus cristo siguiendo el ministerio de jose smith que hasta el dia de hoy he comprobado es verdad te agradezco infinitamente tu dedicacion y tu amor a Dios y a tu semejantes.

Espero que te sientas como en tu casa México es un païs muy acojedor y agradable su gente y tiene ezperanzas, la esperanza es la hermana pobre de la fe y si necesitamos mas chicos como tu te escribo dentro de 8 dias para que tengas un motivo mas para seguir adelante y que sepas que tu esfuerzo y trabajo seran siempre bien recompensados

Translation (kinda...from internet)
hi thank you for your attention and have you put in my way, thank you for choosing follow Christ and only confirmed the faith in jesus Christ following Ministry of Joseph smith that until today I have checked is true you deeply appreciate your dedication and your love for God and your neighbors.
I hope to make you feel as at your home, Mexico is a very welcoming country and pleasant its people and ezperanzas, hope is the poor sister of faith and if need more guys like you I am writing within 8 days to give you a reason later to follow and know your effort and work are always well rewarded

I’m gonna miss her but we are gonna continue teaching her daughter and baptize her.  All in all this week was good and we are really busy for the next week! 

My comps not dead! We are actually equals as in there’s no senior comp and it’s pretty cool. We both just work and take turns in lessons and its super smooth. I‘m gonna miss him after this change. 

Well that’s all I can remember for what I had planned to talk about... I love you guys and thanks for all your support!

Love
Elder Marrott

Dalila, Susana (mom) Elder Marrott

Gato...study companion

Susana and Elder Marrott

Happy New Year!

Hey!

So I don't have a lot of time to write today... I got a new comp this morning and guess what?? He’s going to die here too!!! Ugh.. haha. His name is Elder Cifuentes and super cool. I knew of him a bit before mostly because he’s pretty famous in the mission for being left in the same are for 9 months.. haha. So far he’s really cool. I was honestly ready to get a new comp.. Elder Sanchez was cool and all but he was super frito when he left and we did like no work this week. Not to mention we fought a bit more. All in all, that’s how the mission is!

So they also took out the 4 missionaries from the area and it’s only me and my comp. Which is interesting because i don’t know half my area... haha. They joined the areas so i hardly know the investigators that we have there and not really the area like at all. We had a really good meeting to plan in the ward though and should really be able to expect the help of the ward to meet the high goals that we had. 8 baptisms and 8 less actives activated every month!! I’m glad we aren’t the only ones that have to do all the work to reach these goals.

 Besides all that i had a good new years! We had to be in the house at 9 again but besides that it was good. TONS of members have fed us this last week and its been really nice. The only problem is eating a little at each house and not a ton everytime or you die.. Luckily i dont think our members get offended that easily. I’m probably going to be here in this ward for like 3 more months if nothing crazy happens so that’s at least 2 more changes.

 This morning i also saw Elder Holmstead my trainer! I guess they’re taking both the elders out of hospital and whitewashing it. He’s doing good and it was cool to talk to him. Sorry if my English is terrible I’ve been living with pure Spanish speakers for like almost 2 months.. English is harder than spanish right now haha. Well I love you all and i gotta go!! Thanks for all the support and start out the year good! 

Love Elder Marrott