Elder Connolly Letter #45

Hello Family

Greetings from a wet week from Mexico!  Flip, it rained every day! haha. but its so fun,  I love it. I've learned to love Merida~ its such an awesome city.  Yesterday I don't think 1 square inch of my clothes were dry~literally.  I need to buy a good rain coat ha.  It's definitely hurricane season. I would say the rain is better than the blazing sun though that we had in May ha!  Also I would recommend to any travelers who may visit the Yucatan peninsula including Cancun and Playa del Carmen to come between March to May, those are definately the sunniest~ perfect for the beach and seeing the ruins. Like 3 hours ago an elder that went home 8 weeks ago came back and knocked on the offices door.  He introduced his family to us~ mom, you´ll be getting another call from another missionary mom ha,~I gave them our home phone.  They are from Murray as well and they´ve been visiting here for the past week.  The first question I asked him was "how are the ruins?" ahaha, because as missionaries we can't visit them.  He loved them, just a bummer to come the week of pure rain showers

Well, this week was our first week as a legit 3-some: Elder Connolly, Gibbs and Amador. Elder Suarez left early Monday morning.  We´ve been commuting to our area, about 40 minutes everyday and night. We also had a few capacitations and stuff. the work: well we had to drop a few people and we weren't able to visit a bunch, it was a bummer.  Also we had our rules reinforced this week due to a few things that are going on.  We have to head back to our house starting at 8pm, so we really don't have much time to work in our area. We had a powerful lesson yesterday with Jonny-- he is one tough cub to crack...we can't get him to accept a baptismal date. He is awesome, just really duro ha. We have a great new investigator that has really surprised me actually. Its a man of about 50 named Juan. The spirits definitely working on him a bunch because I don't know how he came out to be such a great investigator.  I am really excited to work with him.  I am hoping he gets to church tomorrow. 

It will be fun week in the offices next week.  It is the last week of the month which means I have to prepare the materials for the Zone council and also we have 5 houses to close from last transfer before the end of the month to avoid being charged for July. we´re gonna travel to a bunch of a pueblos, unfortunately none with beaches ;( ha. but I'm still excited.)

1.  Did you get the package?

yeah, thanks, I loved it. I was bummed the frisbee is broken!  We were actually wanting a good frisbee to play with p day, but its chill. I shared my seafoam chocolates with Linda, the mail lady and the rest of the mail office staff as we waited for the taxi to come pick us up ha. Thanks!

2.  How is it going with the new couple in the mission office?  Are they catching on better?

I love it! ha,  Elder Vazquez and I have a 30 minute study together sharing what we learned everyday. I call him and get calls from him if we are walking in the street and think of something in our areas.  We´re way into the "second comforter" (segundo consolador) right now.... pretty cool ha, study it if you wanna know what it is ;)

Elder Vazquez has the craziest conversion story and history I have ever heard. He was a Catholic priest, met the missionaries on a Monday, long story short was baptized that Saturday, confirmed, received the priesthood and blessed the sacrament that Sunday, and 3 months later got called to be a bishop, then 2 months after that the stake president didn't know he was a recent convert and wasn't endowed yet, so he released him until at the 1 year mark he went to the temple and got his endowment, was called to be branch president of a small branch.  Within 2 years his branch became a ward and then divided into 2 wards hahaha.   Then became a counselor in the stake presidency, stake president, counselor to the president of the Mexico City Mission, Mission President in Argentina, counselor in the MTC in Mexico, and now he is just an Elder. and the saddest part of it all is that the missionaries that baptized him and his wife are inactive right now...

3.  Are you actually living in the offices?  A lady that you met in Wallmart called and we had such a fun talk---she said you looked so great and totally happy.  She said she would email me some pics but she hasn't done it yet.  She said the mission office and the mission home were about an hour apart.  Where are you living?

yep, i live in the basement and the offices are above us. i really like it a lot better. oh this is  cool, she gave us $30 american dollars to go out and eat! I used it for my birthday dinner ha. ummm well you can say the mission home is Presidents house where he lives and I live in the mission office, and no its like 15 minutes in a taxi to his house from here~~ it's close. 

4.  Give is more details about your comps?  Both of them?  Where are they from?  Families?  How is it going?  Where is E. Gibbs from?

well i have 2 comps: Elder Gibbs and Elder Amador, which means:  "Elder Lover" haha

Elder Gibbs is from Murray. He's from my graduating class in 2010 but he left out on his mission right out of high school instead of doing college and stuff.  He has 19 months and will go home in November. He is the executive secretary for the president.  I just asked him to tell me about him, he's sitting at the desk to my left, and this is what he said "he's just a typical nerd. he's never had a girlfriend, loves linux and any type of open source computer programing, including android. Has a 80 wpm (words per minute) typing speed and he loves computers. Basically it."  I told him I'd hire him to do my computer system in my house when I set it all up.ha. I love knowing nerds ;)

And Elder Amador is from Mexico City. He got here the same day I did~ we were born together ha. Something cool is that his mom served a mission here in Merida 25 years ago and there are members from my ward that knew his mom, cool little small world we have in the church.  It is going great with him. We´ll be leaving the offices together, right now he is training Elder Vazquez to be the Financial secretary, so he's just with us while the training is going on. He is a good buddy and very funny. I love this 3 some, it will be a fun transfer.

5.  Do you have any idea what will happen next transfer?

nope, no idea~ well sort of, I'll be leaving, this is definitely my last transfer in the offices, you can be here from anywhere to 2 up to 4 transfers, and since this is my 4th, I'll be hitting the limit. I'm hoping I get to train a new elder when I leave the offices, but we´ll see.

Thanks for the congrats for HUMP DAY! here we go with year #2. I thought about 1 year ago yesterday when I was laying in MTC bed looking at the brick wall to my right wondering what the heck was I doing there hahaha. I have already been out 1 year, its crazy. I'm half way! what the? ha it so funny. thanks for the emails.

Love you all, thanks for E´r Thing. 

PS if you wanna know my new favorite song, just in case you were wondering haha, its "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" by Mormon Tabernacle CHoir, they are sooo talented!

Elder Connolly

Fwd: CARTTA #42 MEXICO!

Hey Fam!

Here we are in Junio! Crazy! I can't believe it! The 1 year mark is coming up quick. GO KATE AND ERIC, PREGO!!!  Alden's gonna be a Big BRO!  SO awesome!  And I can't believe Trent is already home, nutty!  When does Cameron get home?

Q´s

1.  Print off the instructions for voting--I was wondering how we would be able to allow you to vote......then do it!  
Ill look into it. the other secretary wants to do it too. if i have Q´s or if you can do anything to help me mom, ill let you know. i would like to vote just to say i did! ha

2.  Story of the week?
UMMM I would have to say with Jonni. Hes a hopeful temple trip in a year ha, so we are trying to work a lot with him. His wife is a strong member and comes from a strong family.  Her dad is one of the 7 stake presidentes in Merida or something.  But she married a Catholic!  haha come on!  We had a great few lessons this week. Two weeks ago he felt pressured when we put a baptismal date for the 14th of June and actually told his wife that he didn't want us to return. She was devastated and started to pray to have his heart softened toward the message. And when we showed up for the lesson on Thursday, he was ready to learn again and tha'ts when his wife told us the story of what had happened over the past 2 weeks, with tears streaming down her cheeks. Jonni´s a great guy, would make a great member and baptism, but he just needs a little bit of time. I hope I'll be here for when he feels ready.  What helped a ton was that we had the 2nd counselor in the ward come with us to the lesson on Thursday, and he just gave a great testimony of how he converted to the church, and to our surprise, it was a very similar story with how Jonni is coming to the church, almost a perfect match-- and that helped Jonni out alot.  They are coming to church tomorrow, and we hope to keep him there for at least the 2nd hour, and would be amazing for the 3rd too!

3.  We loved the story of Hernan--we are dying to hear if anything happened this week....
so hes listening to us. nothing really spectacular came from him this week, but I am grateful for the chance we have again to teach him again.

4.  What are the plans the church has for August as far as Mitt Romney?  I am so curious!  

So come august, Mormon.org is coming out in Spanish, A LOT better than it is. Presidente Salinas is beyond ecstatic about this release. As missionaries, we are told to start preparing and writing a profile about who we are, as Mormons, without the plaque, just plain old Richie Connolly. We are going to take a picture in street clothes and put our real names and they´re all going to go up online.  When mine is up, I will tell you!  But you may have to learn Spanish to read it!  Also, as part of the lessons, we are going to have time set apart in planning to use mormon.org  Every week to use the videos that they will be releasing for the missionaries. for example, if we are teaching someone about faith one day, we leave Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon and the video "etc" on mormon.org.  The missionary work is going to the internet, and what presidente Salinas told us: "you will be able to tell your kids and write in your journals that you were in the mission when the work went digital."  It should be spectacular, and I am excited to try it out when it releases. Especially in parts where there is a lot of tourism, there are a lot of people who know "the Mormons" because of Mitt Romney, and the church is well aware of that and taking advantage of it. So with the new mormon.org that will release in Spanish in August, we will use the Mormon Boom to our advantage. If I think of more news, I'll let you know next week!

Well the week went well, the work is good.  The office was chill this week, the sun is unbelievable hot, and I got a haircut ;) ! that's about it, and it's time I gotta go. Sorry it's somewhat short. Thanks for the emails and letters. you guys are the beeeest! Laterrrr

Elder Connolly

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