Hey everyone! How are you all doing? I hope you had an awesome week and the Lord is continually blessing you in your efforts. This week for me was a bit crazy and super busy, but a lot of fun and there is no place I’d rather be than in Oaxaca Mexico!
Multi-Zone Conference and Mexican Independence Day Starting off strong, Wednesday was absolutely crazy. Because of transfers a few weeks ago, there was a zone conference, but the mission president decided to have all the zones in the city (about half of the mision) take part. And, to make things better, it took place on September 15th, Mexican Independence day! (No, Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence day). So basically this conference was literally a party from dawn till dusk, all day long. There were a bunch of awesome lessons given around the topic of ministering, and the mission president talked on obedience. The rest of the day we had plenty of native Mexican food, played games, and had a talent show which included each of the three zones giving a skit. Ours was on Mexican Independence with a few mission jokes inserted for comedy, but another zone had a super hilarious skit where they exaggerated the sketchiness of taxis down here. By the end, everyone was pretty muy dying from laughter. Something also super cool is that I got to talk to a few of the guys who started their missions at the same time as me.
Interviews! This week along with the zone conference, we had interviews with the Mission President. They went well, but we spent practically the whole day in the mission offices. There was a mission-wide meeting that delayed our interviews, then some other problems happened so we pretty much sat around and talked to the other elders in our district. Interestingly enough, one elder in the trio in our district, Elder Espinoza, had a sudden transfer because a few of the missionaries from who were reassigned to the states finally got to Oaxaca. So now there is another American elder in our district, Elder Loveridge, that speaks pretty good Spanish but still is adapting to the culture. He is super cool and going to be really fun to be with.
Biking Adventures Cont. Yes, we still have bikes and they are still super difficult to deal with. This week I think we rode to every one of the furthest houses away for food. Through rain, through heat, we kept riding. And one day we basically had to ride up a mountain and my companion said “It’s exercise!” And I responded (using my limited spanish) “It’s not exercise, it’s torture!” Yeah, so this was our bike adventure for this week.
The Work This week the work has been pretty slow in all honesty. We haven’t had any luck finding new people and even nothing has come from referrals either. We do have two people whose baptism date is coming up soon, Martin and Monica. If you all could pray for them, that would be fantastic! They both have all the lessons but still need their testimony of the Book of Mormon to grow. Apart from them, there are a few others we are teaching, but we keep running into problems that prevent baptism from even being an option. The Work is hard, but we are trying to push through.
And yeah, I gave my first talk in the ward this week in all Spanish. I spoke about personal revelation and it went really well!
—————————————————- And something super important that just went into effect today is that we got the green light to go back to total in-person work! Lessons, eating in member’s houses, the works! The area authority and mission president both had the inspiration and agreed today is the day! We still have to be careful with masks and other COVID protections, but the work is pretty much going to be back to normal. —————————————————-
Pictures! 1. The Elders who started with me 2. Elder Sifuentes and me on top of the mountain 3. District photo 4. Zautla, a town that’s a 1 hour bike ride away but still in our area.
Feel free to write me! I love you all!
-Elder Ord
