Mexico City #12

Mexico #12

12/16/13

Answering questions first:

I’m not sure on the skyping situation.  I’m pretty positive we will skype because its almost free compared to calling.  My next P Day is Dec 23, so I will know before then and will be able to write you guys to say times.

My Christmas packages haven’t arrived yet.   I think, I’m going to the mission office tomorrow so I will find out then!

 I hope I get them all.

Dear Family,

Ok well this week was fantastic!  We had a ton of work and some success!  

Well the picture we had from the baptism was Victoria.  She is 71 years old, and super funny and super crazy!  I don’t know if I have said this yet, but now we have a 5 sacrament meeting attendance policy for every baptism.  It has slowed down the baptisms, but now we can at least retain some people!  Victoria was baptized Saturday.   I performed the ordinance, and like I said she is a little old.   She didn’t get that she needed to plug her nose, so that was a little frightening when she started choking.   But other than that it was a beautiful thing!  One of the great fruits of this baptism was that Victoria’s daughter Guadalupe, who isn’t a member starting crying, and she has since been taking the lessons!  I think we will be able to baptize her, her husband, and their daughter!  Wow!  The Lord is so great!

Well another cool experience that we had this week, was that we had 6 investigators in Sacrament Meeting!  They came out of nowhere because we had planned on about 3, but another 3 showed up!  Aurelio, the man I mentioned last week, that can’t walk, well he was there...WALKING!!!!!!!!!!!  

That was such an amazing thing, and then our first convert, Jose, had his cousin there as well, as well as a man we met about 2 months ago in the street when he was SUPER drunk.  Wow this Ward really helped us out, because for a minute or two we had our hands really full!  Wow I love this Ward!  Aeropuerto!   I really don’t want to be changed, because this next cycle we will have two more elders in our ward, and I’m pretty sure we are going to have a lot of success!  So today it was great news when I learned were not changing.   Which is great because I love my companion Elder Gomez and everyone in this area!   Wow such a great week!

Ok well something that i was studying this week that was interesting;

In Alma 14 it talks about the missionary efforts of Alma and Amulek.  In this chapter, we see some really terrible things.  Alma and Amulek are imprisoned and really beaten.  The saints that they had converted are cast into a fire.  This, honestly is so awful.  I’m sure they loved these people.  They watched this all happen.  They are constrained to not act with the power of God, because those souls are saved.  They are then taken, bound, and put again in prison.  Their clothes are taken, and they are given no food or water.  After this, the lawyers, and the judges come, question them, and beat them.  This is were the miracle happens;

It says in the chapter that after ALL of the lawers and judges had smitten them, up until the VERY LAST ONE, that’s when Alma and Amulek receive power.  I am 100 percent positive they received strength during this trial.  But at this time, they rise up and destroy these terrible men.  This can be applied with us.   After we have been smitten, hurt, and tried, even until THE VERY LAST THING, we receive our strength to change our circumstances.  We must endure until the very end.  That’ not today or tomorrow or this week, but the end!   We will receive the strength to do it, and we WILL be able to do it.  That is a promise from the God of the whole earth: THAT WE CAN DO THIS!!! 

I love this and I hope this helps anyone, because one person is enough.

P.S.  Please keep writing, I love hearing about you all!

Love 

Elder England

Mexico City #11

‪Mexico #11

12/09/13

Querido Familia,

Wow, another week has gone by!  Time moves so fast here!  We are already on week 5 of our transfer cycles.  Just one more week until changes!  Haha, so weird! 

Well to start off, you guys are my family and I’ve really been kind of just writing what I thought missionaries should write.  I want to just write completely openly; hoping that something I say will help any of you, or vise versa.  

The beginning of the cycle was extremely difficult for me. (Not because comp problems.)  I felt that my testimony was bombarded from all sides.  My testimony that all people can be forgiven was attacked.  I felt too much that there was no way that I should be here.  That I wasn’t good enough to even be here. What happened was, I trusted in my companion and told him of my thoughts.  He helped a lot, but I still felt off.  We decided that what was best, was for me to talk to the Mission President.  I went in and told him what I was feeling and he was extremely optimistic.  This was something that I didn’t expect.  What he said was;  “If the Lord only wanted 100 percent perfect missionaries, there would be NO missionaries.”  This is so true.  The thing is, we’re not perfect.  None of us!   None of us are what we want to be, or what we need to be.   However, the Lord accepts our contributions as long as we innocently offer our help.  We all have past actions that we are ashamed of.  We feel sometimes that we aren’t good enough.   We all are attacked by the doubts and feelings of the natural man.  We all can do something right now.  We can talk to our leaders.  We can show our love to another child of God. Or we can do the simple act of trusting the Lord and CHOOSING to accept the atonement.  We all have agency.  We all have that power to change ourselves from what we are into what God is trying to make us into.  That’s what I’m trying to do.   CHOOSE to forget my fears and past and just serve the lord.  That’s hard, but I know that’s what I need to do.  

Ok sorry, but preaching is my job now... let me get off my soap box!

This week was fun and hard and tiring and fun and yeah...

sooo many things!  

For two days this week, we helped a recent convert, Alicia paint her house, and it was so fun!  Her husband is Jesus, the one I was saying that was in the hospital.  Which I learned is a much bigger deal than I thought.  In mexico it’s like a 60 percent chance of you coming out of the surgery ok.   A member told me all about the health care situation in Mexico and I do not want to go there while I’m here!  But anyways, we painted the house, and we helped put up some Christmas decorations.  Here I’m tall, so I hung up all the greenery stuff!  That was really fun!  

We are trying to set a date for baptism now for Jesus.   Because they came with us to the new visitors center, and he was really happy and emotional about it, I think we are going to be able to make an eternal family!  

Oh on that note, we have a new visitors center for the Temple!  It is soooo coool!  It’s so much nicer than the center in Utah, and there is technology i didn’t even know existed!  The best part is we can go whenever we want with investigators, and menos activos and reciento conversos!  Haha !  It’s really so awesome!  

This week, we had a really cool experience while looking for a contact!  

After lunch on Friday, we were walking back to the house to do planning, and we got a call from the offices.  They said we had a reference, and they wanted us to go as soon as possible.  Well, we both felt that we should go, so we made the journey to Penon de los Banos, which is the most dangerous part of my area.  We don’t like to be there after sunlight, and the sun was setting.  But we felt the confidence of the Lord.  Well, we walk to the reference and we knock.  A young man about 25 years old, tells us that the contact, Aurelio, is sick in the hospital.  He’s an old man, so we didn’t know if we would ever meet him, or if he was going to pass away.  We left a little disheartened, and we started walking back home.  We both felt very impressed to visit a nearby less active family.  While we talked with them, we felt like we should keep the message short and leave.  As we left, we saw a woman of about 35 start running up to us.  We thought she needed to enter the door we came out of, but she says:  “No, no, no, I’m from the church!  She told us that she lives in Florida but was in town to visit her dad.  My comp asked her her dad’s name, and it was Aurelio!  Haha!  We told her that he was in the hospital and she made a funny face and laughed and said: “No, I just saw him!”  We were already seeing a small miracle.  

We went with her to their house and met him.  He’s about 80 years old and he is bed ridden.  His granddaughter, who was 3, told him that he needed to talk to the missionaries.  The mom called the church 2 hours before we were in the house talking to him!  We gave the first lesson and Aurelio was very interested!  We left in awe of how the Savior led us that day.  I don’t know how, but we are going to baptize Aurelio.  I can feel it!!!!

Oh, I hope this made sense, and I hope that I made sense of all my thoughts.  They are always pretty jumbled!

Well, family I love you and I hope to hear from all of you soon!  In a letter or an email.  Letters would be cool!   Hint!!! Haha!

love you all

Elder Clayton England

Mexico City #10

‪Elder Clayton England

Mexico #10

12/02/13

Well: I hope you all got my pictures of the Ferrari!  Ha Ha, it was the coolest/weirdest thing ever!  In the middle of Mexico City, I see this bright red beauty, and I stopped walking!  Ha Ha! I guess I have gone through car with drawls without even noticing!  Ha Ha!  It was so awesome!  I guess there is a Ferrari Club nearby and I think a man was renting it for the day.   But I’m not sure...it would be impossible to drive that thing here without a: it being stolen, b: crashing into another car, c: the road collapsing...the roads here are pretty funny!‬

Ok this week was pretty great!  I’m starting to really love my Ward!  The members are like a huge family, and they really all love each other!  The Stake is amazing, and we have so much fun with them!  Ha ha!  They are so great!

Ok, were do I start this week? I guess by thanking you all for the packages!  Ha Ha! The secretaries in the office were so mad.   How many did you send? 4 or 5, because I already have four!  Ha ha! They are so awesome!  I have almost already eaten all the Pop Tarts, and I am thinking of doing something for the primary with all the Heath Bars!  Ha ha! I guess there are about 100 bars, and there are about 25 kids in the primary here.   So I will have a BUNCH left over!  Hahaha! And the creepy troll elf thingy is awesome, and by that I mean super scary, because my comp keeps moving it around and trying to scare me!  

This week was very funny!  I’m starting to get a hang of Spanish now, that’s only because the gift of tongues is a really real thing.  I could say that I’ve studied perfectly, but I have received so much help from the Savior on that front.  

One story with that was we were at Hermana Laticia´s house and she is crazy.   She is hilarious and she always gives the missionaries food! I love her and we are trying to get her daughter to go on a mission because she has gotten a lot of spiritual promptings to serve.  But anyways, we were there for a lesson, and before we were talking and joking around, and her daughter, Jenni, said something to me.  I don’t remember what, but I understood it and we all started laughing.  That’s when Hermana Laticia, laughing, says in Spanish ¨the guero (white boy) doesn´t understand, he just likes to laugh¨.   That´s when I say ¨Hermana, I understand perfectly, and I agree¨!   She was shocked and it was super funny!  haha I love that family!  

I forgot to tell you all, but I ate pig nose tacos.  We were at lunch with a member in the markets, and we had tacos.  In the markets you can eat any part of the pig you want because they basically have it all there!  But this is how it went:

Me: ¨Hey what kind of taco are you getting?”

Comp: ¨Well I think leg and thigh, you?”

Me:  ¨Well, I see the nose right there, can we eat that?”

Comp:  ¨Why do you want to eat THAT?” 

Me:  ¨We’re in Mexico....so I’m pretty sure I need to?” 

Comp:  ¨....hmm I guess you’re right.  Makes sense!”

Haha!  It was so funny.   I love this place!  The tacos, weren’t half bad, it was easy..ish to forget what I was eating, but I love the chance to try new things!  

Our investigators!  We are baptizing Victoria this Saturday!  She is about 75 and way funny!  She is so crazy, and she always starts the lessons with, ¨ok do you want to pray or should I?¨   Haha! She is hilarious and she talks soooo fast, so it is so hard to understand her! We are also working with her daughter and her son in law.  They have accepted a baptismal date, but we need to work out a divorce first from her previous husband.  The problem is no one knows where he is, but the Lord will take care of it all.  I don’t know how, but he will.  

Well this week, I read the 4th missionary again.  I love how empowering that story is, and I hope everyone has a chance to read it!  It applies to everyone.  What I love so much from it, is how much it places our own responsibility on becoming what we should be.  There are countless scriptures that say we receive according to our desires.  This is so amazing to me, because I know what I want to be.   I just don’t know how to do it.  Heavenly Father will make the way for me, and I  just have to accept His help.  This is true for all of us.   We can all change who we are, right now for the better.  We are always changing, and we always have a chance to become more than we are!  I absolutely love this!  A thing I want everyone to know, is that through this gospel, we can change.  Without it, we have no reason to, but when we have the knowledge that we do, we can use it to become more like our Savior.   And that is killing the natural man.  I have a strong testimony of that and I am trying to accept His help more in my life.

Mi familia, les amo.  Les Extraño un buen!   Estoy muy animado hablar con ustedes este navidad!  Yo espero que sepan que yo voy hacer mi mejor esfuerzo. Tengo esperanza en el futuro y tengo esperanza en ustedes!  

Con amor siempre

Elder Clayton Rodney England

Mexico City #9

MEXICO # 9

11/25/13 (KFC)

Dear Familia,

Pues, me encanta Mexico.  Realmente.  La comida es rica y la gente son bueno.  Les amo much.  Este Semana fue muy duro, estoy muy agradecido por su amor y su apoya.  Por favor, lo necesito su ayuda mucho.  No puedo hacer este obra sin mi familia.  

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  New babies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  SO COOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well where do I start with this week?  I guess with answering questions:

Well Dad, I am in my same apartment, which I love.  They view is so crazy!  I can see the Temple, the Mexico MTC, a soccer stadium, a race track, and my whole area from the roof!!!  Mexico City is cheating when it says it's one city, mainly because it's probably about the same size of Utah Valley, Salt Lake Valley, and ...Logan?  I'm not sure which one it is, but it's that big!  It truly is amazing!  There are so many people here!  The metro gets "tan feo" with people!  Ok other questions, Cassidy, no it really isn't cold here, and when I don't wear a jacket people think I'm weird and call me irresponsible.   (I think that's what they're saying...) and the food here is so good!  We eat with members everyday and they feed us really well.  It truly humbles me.  These people have almost nothing and they are offering us seconds! Wow! 

Ok, Spanish: Well now that I’m starting to get a hang of the language.  (I really receive the gift of tongues DAILY!)  I am finding that it really is such a beautiful language.  The way that it sounds when you understand it, it sounds so pretty.  I love it...when they're not swearing at me!)

 Ok ,P day:  Today we cleaned the apartment for about two hours because the house was very unorganized, and it was hard to feel the spirit with everything everywhere.   Then we went and had lunch with some other Elders and went to Walmart!  Walmart!  It's like America in there!  I loved it!  And I realized I love buying “post its” and things like that...I guess I'm just super weird, but I Have Lucky Charms!!!!!  Yes!!!!!  Oh and for Christmas, I am grateful for anything thank you!

Ok, well we don't really have that much time to write today.  I need to be better on that.  Guys just so you know I think I’m getting a little lax with the rules.  I'm not going to blame it on my companion.  I would really like it if you helped me out with being obedient.  Just tell me your expectations, and please help me to live up to them.

Well this week was really difficult in terms of my testimony.  For most of the week I was so worried that I couldn't do this.  That I would have to give up.  I felt terrible in my spirit.  I felt as if I was a terrible person, and that I had no business wearing the name of Christ on my heart, but that's when my companion helped me.  I expressed to him my feelings.  He then told me a very simple thing.  Our message.  Our message is for ALL people, not just the certain select.  It truly is amazing.  I had always believed in the Savior, but I had never internalized that belief.  I had acted, but without proper faith.  I had faith, faith to act, but not faith to really take the Savior into my being.  I am trying now to really understand the Savior and Heavenly Father and the Spirit.  One thing that kept coming into my mind is faith without works is dead.  The truth is, it works opposite also.  Works without faith is dead.  If we do all that we can but we don't really have the truthfulness of the gospel IN our souls, what is the point.  That's what I want to share with you all today.   We can use our agency to choose to believe, and like Alma says, if we CHOOSE to believe, that believe will grow if it is true.  I feel that belief growing.  I love it.

Another scripture I found this week was Enos 1 12.

It states that after we do ALL that we can we will be blessed according to our desires, following our faith.  

Family, please help me grow my testimony.  I want to grow in my testimony of my Savior, and please help me to do that!

I love you all!

Elder Clayton Rodney England

(Lunch at Walmart!)

Mexico City #8 PROGRESS

Elder Blotter and Elder England

Well family:

I have a new scripture message this week; Jacob 4:7.  I have never noticed this scripture, but reading it in Spanish really opened my eyes to it.  "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness.." It's like in Ether 12:27, Our Heavenly Father shows us our weaknesses, this seems like a curse and not a blessing, but what's the purpose of this life?  PROGRESS!  We can't progress without weakness, that means it is such great love of God to show us what we need to change.  "...that we may know that it is by his grace..." (enabling power) "...and his great condescencions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things."  Through the enabling power of the atonement, we can become more than we are right now.  In this very instant.  It doesn't matter what we are now.  Now is the time to change, and it's through his blessings that we can do those things asked of us.  To everyone reading this, I know that we all have the power to become more.  I absolutley know that.  We can all achieve those things asked of us-by callings, or by circumstances of life.  We all have that power.  We are all made in the image of God right?  That means that we all have the same capacity as Him. The capacities of Love, Power, Action, everything.  I absolutlely know that that is true.  No matter what YOUR circumstance, YOU can become more.  It's in our nature.  It's part of who we are.  

I love you all.  Please include me in your prayers,.  I need your prayers.  This area needs your prayers.  The world needs your prayers.

If you're with courtney right now, tell her I love her and hug that new baby for me!  I probably should go soon, but know that I love you and so grateful for you.

I love you ,

Elder Clayton Rodney England

Elder Gomez and Elder England

What? Elder Gagon and Elder England

"Mexican Fury!"

Mexico #7

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Clayton England

11/11/13

To: TODD D ENGLAND

• 

Dear mom/Family,

Hahaha! mom that´s so funny that you sent me 5 of the same packages!   Because in reality, those packages never go into the hands of the mexican postal service!  Hahaha!  It goes through the Church.   The address sends it first to Salt Lake, then to Mexico using whatever the church uses to get supplies to chapels and stuff like that.   I guess I´m just going to pig out!!  How awesome!!!  

Dad, that´s a bummer that you tore your menuscus!  You can believe me when I say I know exactly how that feels.  It´s a good thing that racing cars isn´t too hard on knees.  Hahaha!   I remember when you got surgery on your arm and me and mason came to bring you meds and you were asking mom if you could come play tennis with us!   Hahaha!  That was so funny!

Ok about those questions´, Yes we have a mission card, but we use once a month to get money from the atm.  There really is no where to use it.  The tiendas(stores) dont have a reader thingy and we never go to a supermarket, so we really never use it.  But now we have a ton of food.  I love nutella!!!  Nutella is so expensive here though...like 45 pesos. thats ridiculous!!!  its like 3 dollars and it really is so expensive!

Mom, that truly is a very good tactic at getting kids to church!  In the scriptures, we´re told to do missionary service with pursuasion.  That totally falls under that category.  Usually i think that means just outsmarting someone and making them WANT to accept the gospel.  Genius mom!

I had a feeling that something was going wrong with Cole.  I included him in my Fast last Sunday and truly pray for a miracle in his life.  His life is so hard, but one of my new favorite scripures is 

D.&C. 58:2-4 .  It says that now we don´t understand our situations, and our tribulations, but in the next life everything is going to make sense as being for our good.  I love it!  I know Cole was a valiant spirit in the pre life.  I know it.  He must have done such amazing things to be trusted with the life that he has now.  He is strong.

That´s so awesome that you guys are going to be traveling alot!  Cassidy wrote me and i´m going to read it after this letter!  That is sooo awesome that amanda and courtney are due soon!  I really am going to miss those two new babies alot!  Also how is chelsey doing?

Ok this week...

Well Monday we had a zone activity and we played basketball in the ward house in Mixuaca.  That place is a lot more ghetto than my area, which is super nice...well for mexico.  After we played basketball were planched...chewed out...by our zone leaders because of our poor numbers this week.  In all honesty me and my companion and the sisters in our district are the only companionships that doesn´t have at least one frito(lazy) comp.  

Well tuesday, i don´t remember because it was probably uneventful, full of work, but nothing too crazy.

Wednesday was when all the fun started.  I went on splits with Elder Blotter again, and I can say he's my best friend here.  I look up to him alot, and he is helping me so much.  Well that day, I talked with my mission president.   I don´t know why, but I felt I just needed to talk with him.  Well he helped me alot, and I returned to work with Elder Blotter who stayed another night because we couldn´t change in time before curfew.

Well thursday, i was with my companion again, and it was a bad/good day.  During my time with Elder Blotter, I learned more of my companion, and shared more.  We decided that my companion needed some help from Elder Blotter so we went on another split the following day.  After that day I had about an hour and a half talk with my companion.  ) We patched every single thing up.  He really showed me how much he loved me.  I truly am so indebted to him.   I love him.  He´s my padre.  Now we are best friends.

Oh yeah!!!!!!   Our baptism was yesterday, and i forgot my camera...i know I'm dumb.  It was funny because I performed the ordinance, and I hit josé´s head on the wall!!!!!!!! But he didn´t notice!!!!!!!  Another soul joined us yesterday, what a beautiful day!

I'm tring to change, to come unto Christ. any suggestions?  Please help me figure this out.   This morning I had the chance to read cousin Riley´s story again, and I want so badly to apply the atonement in my life like that.  

Also my investigator jesus had surgery, please remember him in your prayers.  

Les Amo

Elder Clayton England