Christmas Eve was spent very quietly updating the area book and shining our shoes. A lady we believe will be baptized soon gave us Christmas sweaters (see attached)
We woke up and went to the Baiza's for some breakfast Taco's. We headed back to the apartment, opened our presents, and I was so spoiled. Just so ridiculously spoiled. I got some sweet ties, a GPS, some nice cards, knick knacks, and just a heinous amount candy. (see attached) We spent a little bit of Christmas calculating the calories sitting on our counter, granted some of it we had prior to Christmas, but there were 37,000 calories of junk on our counter, by the end of that day. Since then, the amount has grown and we've barely made a dent. For anyone into Biomechanics, I believe the conversion from calories to human body fat is 2200 calories to 1lb, someone can check me on that. SO, if that is the case, I'm looking at an additional 17 pounds added to my body in the next few weeks. That's awesome. I'm getting ready for hibernation.
Elder Ware's parents have a tradition of frosting Christmas cookies, so they sent us a big tub of unfrosted sugar cookies which we frosted together and handed out to a few families during the day.
We then spent a good part of the day with the Garcia family, eating Tamales and playing lotarea, or Mexican Bingo. There were so many people in that house! (see attached) In addition to what's in the picture there where three adults directly about my person and 4 more lining the right wall. It was sweet, and that room was probably just larger than my bedroom at home.
Highlight of the day was talking a phone call home for a little under an hour.
Several families are progressing toward the waters of baptism and are making big and bold strides. I'm so proud and inspired by the faith their showing.
Yesterday I gave a 10 minute talk in Spanish. I wish I was fluent enough to ad-lib it but I spent 10 minutes with my head down reading my talk like an idiot. But it was comprehensible! So improvements are being made.
I learned a little about what it means for this time to be a time of probation and a time to prepare to meet God. I liked how in Jacob 5:27 Christ asks his father for more time to prune and dig about the vineyard. It made me realize the additional time we have to change and repent here is a blessing directly from Christ who truly is our advocate before the Father.
A follow-up on suffering, Christ became perfect through suffering (Hebrews 5:8) and we have been called to follow his example in all things (1 Peter 2:20-21).
A follow-up on the mists of darkness of the world. (Helaman 5:41-47) These people overcame their could of darkness by crying repentance until they had faith in Christ. Then they found themselves in pillars of fire. I like that that God's glory didn't come upon them once they repented, instead once they'd become worthy of seeing it, they found that they had the fire about them the whole time and just couldn't see it because the darkness surrounding them was too thick.
An unnamed man's wife was LDS for 7 years and then became inactive. We visited their house and he called us over to his side gate so he could yell at us a little bit. When we'd warmly greeted him and shaken his hand we asked him his name. He glared at us and retorted, "Nope."
"Nope what?"
"Nope."
"You won't tell us your name? (He was a mechanic and it was embroidered on his shirt)
"Nope"
"Do you want to talk to us?"
"Nope."
"This is a great house you have here, how long have you lived here?"
We talked to him for 10 minutes and left on really good terms. These people are great.
I love you and I miss you!
Elder Tyler Meidell
12.23.13
Hey Sweet Family,
12.23.13
Hey Sweet Family,
I love you guys and I miss you a whole lot. I'll catch you up on my week real quick. We had a tri-zone meeting with the traveling assistants and they introduced a new language program for the mission. It's smart, it gives me some good ideas for how to direct my language study these next few transfers. President Slaughter interviewed all the missionaries in the mission this week so i spent 10 minutes chatting with him, I didn't have any pressing concerns so it was pretty brief. Then we had Christmas Conference, whoo! I wish i would've taken my camera, but I didn't so i'm sorry about that. A lot of Elders spent the time catching up the Elder's they'd served with, but since I only know 10 people it wasn't a huge event for me. We had a great devotional in the morning about angels and the story of Christ's birth, and then we had some rockin barbeque, and spent the final 4 hours listening to .. musical talents.. from within the ward. Some of it was so legit, and some if it was kinda like.. you're mom said you we're really good didn't she?
So after all that this week we didn't get quite as much missionary work done, but it was really fun!
It's fluctuating between 45 and 65 degrees here so people are breaking out their scarves, haha this is a joke of a winter.
A few little stories from serving in south side San Antonio, our number one investigator was nearly deported 2 weeks prior to baptism, so that was real scary, but the family is staying! Woo!
A man yelled at me from across the street the other day, "Hey! Are you Religious?" haha, so that's probably the easiest way to start a conversation with me right now. i walked across the street and shook his hand and began talking to him. He just started back with this big yellow smile and some crazy eyes. I asked him his name and ye replied, "Machete." I rephrased my question 3 times and got the same answer. Then finally he whipped off his cowboy hat and big black trench coat and revealed a machete in his belt which he then whipped out at me. I sorta jumped back and he starts busting up maniacally. He then told about his machete for 5 minutes. He was a little crazy but totally harmless.. and he loves his machete.
A man asked me again about why it's hard to change and to do the right thing. I started to study more about repentance and deliverance. I learned that many times in the scriptures God gives men physical power to overcome their obstacles. Nephi breaking the ropes on his wrists while his family suffered on the ship in the storming sea, Samson tearing apart a lion with his bare hands, and Alma and Amulek escaping from prison. God shows his strength to deliver men so that men will trust in his ability so save them. of all the things on earth that can bind us, the most prevalent is sin. It takes away our agency, one of the most precious gifts from our father in heaven, it ultimately halts our eternal progression. We know God can save us from earthly bondage, and this is so we can have faith in his ability to save us from eternal bondage. Everything points back to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We repent of our sins and we are delivered, we can shake off the chains of sin that fetter us while we strive to progress toward becoming perfect like our father in heaven who is perfect.
There is a lot to say and not a lot of time. I hope that gets you thinking and studying.
I love you guys, I can't wait to talk to you Christmas Day!
Elder Tyler Meidell
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