14 Mar 2016 - Sisters, Sisters,Sisters...

Dear Family,

These weeks fly so fast, even faster than before believe it or not.

Well Pretty much this whole week in the mornings we've gone with the Elder and Sister Downs (They're the married couple and office missionaries) to do surprise attacks on the missionaries of our zone to check if their houses are ''Worthy''.......aka. clean. We freak out just about all of them but I'm proud of them for being relatively clean.

So something funny happened the other day. So we had contacted some girl in the street like in her 20's and she said that she lives with her husband and that we could visit. So we set a date to visit. The day came and we got there on time and knocked and she opened up and invited us in. She went to wake up her husband but he took a long time to get up. So we sang a hymn and said a prayer and by the time we finished he had opened to join us. When he saw us he started walking really fast and so to not be rude I stood up to shake his hand. He shook my hand and said '' Look this is whats going to happen. We're Catholic, we're not Mormon, if we want you to visit again we'll call. He went to the door to unlock it but my comp and I were thinking that he was going to lock it to trap us in and kill us. Then he started counting and so we grabbed our stuff and got outta there. Man! This guy was super psycho. I thought we were gonners. So we kicked the dust off our shoes and washed our hands on their door step so the destroying angel wouldn't pass them by.....hahaha  just kidding.   

This transfer has probably been and will probably be the craziest and most fun of all of them! 

The other day we get a call from a sister from our ward and she says ''Hey I need you guys to baptize my dad. He's 88 years old and is super fragile and is probably going to die soon, I don't want him to go with Satan.'' Shes so funny but yeah we have his baptism set for this Saturday and between the 4 of us (me, Elder Wahlstrom, her husband and the bishop) we're gonna baptism him. He can't move so that's why we're gonna have to do a team effort. I'm super pumped!!!

Well I'm greatly for the confidence of my Heavenly Father and for the wonderful parents He gave me. Love you guys so much!!

I'm glad the MTC activity was a success, its pretty difficult here sometimes to get the youth excited about serving a mission. 

I love you guys and I love being a missionary.

8 more months(:

Elder Padilla 

The process of the Harvest.

Family Business

29 Feb 2016 - New Zone Leader...

Dear family,

So we had transfers today and now I'm in Obregon City as zone leader with Elder Wahlstrom. (I don't know if you remember him but we were in the same district in the MTC, so that totally rocks)

This week was pretty relaxing and fun!

We said goodbye to the members and a few investigators. There was an investigator that we had that is a teenage girl (18 years old) and she didn't know about the rule and she gave me a hug and I practically did what my companion did at the beginning of the last transfer, not sure if you remember, but yeah I pretty much smacked her in the face. It was totally by accident and like completely by reaction but I shook her warmly by the hand and said goodbye.

I'm super pumped for this transfer!!! 

I love you guys a ton!

Elder Padilla  

22 Feb 2016 - 5 Teaching Families...

Dear family,

 

Well this week was pretty great but also pretty normal.

We found a family of 5 that we're teaching and the three that are adults accepted to be baptized in March!!!!

This area is sooo great!! 

So to catch up. I've been here in Guamuchil for 7 1/2 months. With my 15 months I've only had 2 areas.

As a mission we're shooting for the 100 baptism mark and I think we're going to make it! The members here are so great and there's a sister in our ward that turned 75 this past week and she was one of the Pioneers of the church here in Guamuchil so we sang the happy birthday song in third hour and her husband (84 years old) passed out in his chair hahha not funny but nobody got hurt sooo its a little funny. 

We had a priesthood barbeque on Thursday and we invited all of the less active priesthood holders and it was super great the turn out. But it was also super funny because 13 less actives showed up to the BBQ but they never show up to church on Sundays, so during the BBQ one of the brothers asks.''Hey, why do you guys show up when we have activities but not when we have church?'' and they started to say, almost as if a choir director had signaled them all to say the same words at once..''I had a sore throat last Sunday, but for the next one I'll be there....'' hahahaha man soo funny!! But we're glad that we had a night to enjoy together.

Well the rest of the week I don't really remember that well but it was really fun!

I love you all!

Elder Padilla

15 Feb 2016 - New 9 yr old Baptism

Dear Family,

This week was super wow! 

We've been teaching the son of a less active mom and because he's 9 years old now, he counted as a convert baptism!! WOOHOO! It was super great, We had the baptism of Thursday so that both his mom and dad could be there. The dad works as security in a prison on an island and comes to visit the family every 3 weeks and only stays 5 days. I don't know how they do it but it seems a little extreme for me. But when he told me that he worked on an island it reminded me of that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio..Shutter Island I think. Its basically the same.

These weeks are flying and I hardly remember what happens in the week to tell you guys.

That's sick that the church is going to put a chapel next door, Maybe when we visit with my kids it'll be ready! 

I love you all! 

Elder Padilla

..I'll send pictures.

Zone Conference

Family Home Evening

8 Feb 2016 - Short, sweet and photos

Dear Family,

This week was the bomb! 

love, 

Elder Padilla

Triso's Baptism

Triso's Baptism

Carnival

Carnival

Carnival

1 Feb 2016 - Special Conference... Ouchie

Dear Family,

This week was pretty great! We worked like crazy and our whole district is planning on baptizing 2 or 3 this month!

On Thursday we had a ''Special conference'' with President Munive and we'd seen a transmission that was broadcasted to all the missions in the world the past week and so we thought that we were going to talk about what we had learned and what we had applied to our areas but nope...We show up and everyones all silently studying, waiting for President and within 10 minutes he arrives with the assistants. And for one thing, we knew that something was up when the assistants showed up because they never visit with president this far south in the mission. So we're sitting there and the president starts talking to us, telling us funny stories and asking us how we're doing. hahaha And on the sacrament table the assistants start opening up the boxes and pulling out syringes and little bottles of medication. Oh man, I think one of the sisters screamed hahaha everyone started freaking out and that's when President told us ''Hey, calm down, only the missionaries who have more than 5 months have to get injected.'' and than he began to laugh because out of the 34 of us only my companion and another elder didn't have to get poked. So one by one the 6 sisters got injected and then they all left the room because all of the elders had brought there suit jackets and long sleeved shirts so the chapel turned into a locker room with all of us taking our shirts off to get it in the shoulder. The ones injecting were the two assistants and an elder who had formally be assistant, two Mexicans and an elder American. Well as we all got in line I was watching how each of them were doing it to see which was the best, or better said, which one was gonna hurt the least. The American, Elder Funk, was stabbing the elders and poking really fast so I didn't want him. The other elder, Elder Rodriguez, is really funny but he said he hadn't had practice in awhile, so he was a no. So I hop in the line for Elder Flores thinking that he'd be the most careful. hahahaha. So the elder directly in front of me gets his shot from Elder Flores and we watch it go in straight but then he says ''oh wait, I forgot to push the air out.'' and pulls it out and stabs it back in really fast, hahahahaha and in a millisecond I hop back into the line of Elder Rodriguez. I go to get mine and the elder says ''Don't look at me or I'll laugh'' so I looked away and it went pretty smoothly until he starts to take it out, his hand started to shake and so he snatches it and it came out angled. Hurt like a dog and he made me bleed. hahaha and I'm there like ''man what'd you do?'' and he says ''hey man, it happens all the time.'' and I look at the other elders and not a single one had blood dripping from their shoulder. I'm sorry to say it mom and dad, but this day I most defiantly stained my garments.

The rest of the week was pretty normal and we're super psyched!! This Saturday is Tirso's baptism!!! WOOHOOO!

I'll send pictures!

Love you all!

Elder Padilla  

25 Jan 2016 - Carnival...

Family,

Wow, it snowed. I wasn't surprised that it snowed but that you guys were able to stack it higher than Mr. John. Well done.

So this week was pretty normal, but I don't know if you guys remember The ''Carnival'' that happened in Matt's mission when he was there?.....Well the carnival here starts in a few weeks and the people are already going crazy! haha There's one main street in Guamuchil called Rosales and every night this week this roads been blocked off due to concerts and ''riots''. hahahaa

They haven't even started the carnival yet and they already started shooting firebombs in the air. Its like a firework but all it does is explode like a gunshot. They had a ''bike show'' the other day and there was literally 1 million motorcycles in the road, pretty cool, a ton of ninjas! I don't think the carnival here is quite as dramatic as the one that was in Brazil because our President hasn't given us any precautions or warnings but we'll have to see what happens.

Tirso went to church this past Sunday and he was lookin' fly! hahaha He was wearing one of those blue corduroy suits!! Didn't take a picture but i¡ll send a photo of what it looked like! But I felt bad because it was in the 80's and I asked him if his suit was heavy and he said ''Does the Pope wear a funny hat?'' hahaha no those weren't quite his words but por hay. 

  

I love you guys mucho!

Have a great week in the house.

Elder Padilla