Monday, July 16, 2012 "Gonna Rain All Day, Gonna Rain All Night....Gonna Rain Today!"

Hola Mi Familia! Whew! Sounds like you've had a busy week! Exciting Stuff happening! Sucks about all the teeth stuff! Haha! Thanks for the video of Alex, mom! It was a nice little chuckle! Haha! And thanks everyone for your FHE video! I quite enjoyed that a lot! This week was also quite exciting and very eventful for me as well! So let's get to it! Alex, thank you so much for sending your EFY Report! I absolutely loved it and just like Elise's I was brought to tears hearing your testimony! It was so spiritually uplifting for me and I re-read it often! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Like one of Papa's favorite scriptures says: "I have no greater joy than to know that my children walk in Truth"...well I don't have children, but I have not greater joy than to know that my siblings and my family walk in truth and have testimonies! Thank you! Jumping right to Thursday! We had our multi-zone conference with Caborca (a zone that is 2 hours away that is our same size--10 missionaries) to meet the new Mission President, President and Hermana Hernandez! It was really different at first. It just wasn't the same not to have Pres. and Hermana Velez! And it felt like the new President was holding back? I don't know? Pres. was just so loving to everyone! But they are really nice! Hermana Hernandez is really out going and talks to everyone! We each did a 30 second intro in front of everyone so that they could get to know the missionaries, and she asked us all questions about out life and what how we introduced ourselves! It was nice! I really like her! They are from Uruguay and she is an RM and was a convert at 15. They have 5 kids I think...or 7....something like that....and I think they all may be married. They are an older couple, probs in their 60s? They are from Uruguay which is by Argentina and if anyone knows anything about Argentine Spanish or accents, it is very....elegant Spanish I guess you could say? I guess you could equate it to American English and British English. So it took a bit to get used to their elegant accents, but it was pretty neat! We had the first section of the conference and then a little 10 minute break. I was playing piano during the 10 minute break and one of the sister missionaries came over and started singing to the children's hymns that I was playing. My companion and another missionary came over as well and then Hermana Hernandez. My comp mentioned something that I have a nice voice and Hermana Hernandez asked if I would do a special musical number for everyone before we started the 2nd half of the conference! Of course I couldn't decline a singing/performing opportunity, so of course I accepted! :) However, I didn't feel up to singing by myself without taking time to warm up, so I asked another Elder who is from California who did Show Choir in high school to sing with me! He was a pretty decent voice and I harmonized! We sang "Senor Te Necesito"or "I Need Thee Every Hour". It was quite fantastic if you asked me! The harmonies blended quite nicely! Gosh Dang it! I wish I would have gotten a video. Well that happened. Afterwards, we all went and ate at Flavio's...all 24 of us! I don't know if I've mentioned Flavio's before. It is a really nice restaurant on right on the shore next to the Rocks that is owned by a less active member. This member lets the missionaries order whatever we want and we only have to pay 50 pesos which is like $5. So we go there every few weeks. That night we were supposed to have a FHE night at the church with the whole branch and it was going to start at 7, but there weren’t seats in the vans for the 5PM ride to Sonoyta, so we had to wait till 8PM. By the time we got to Sonoyta it was 9PM and we went to the church hoping there were still people there so we could get a ride home. Luckily the Mexicans aren't very punctual and so they were just starting to eat the dinner by the time we got there and we had a ride home. Now for the fun part! It rained this week! It freaking rained!!!! Ahhh!!!! And I mean RAINED!!!!! I am sending videos and I hope you all get them. I think you may be able to post them to the blog. So Friday morning it just started out a little bit and we were in the Laundry place talking to the Sister that works there when it began. After a few minutes of heavy sprinkles, the sky dropped! It just poured! And there was Thunder too! Oh, you don't even know how excited I got! It was soo much fun! I just ran outside and stood in the rain! Gosh! I miss Georgia rain storms! Well, it came time for the lunch and so we had to leave and we had the opportunity to walk in the rain! As we were walking though it started to clear up and it seem like there were blue skies. We had pizza for lunch this day and as we were eating it began to pour again. And the streets flooded! The power went out in the pizza place and it got hot so we left and went out in walking in the rain and the flooded streets! We went to a store of a member and the member who was working is a youth and she wanted to go with us to the member’s house that we were going to. So we continued to walk in the rain and the flooded streets with the water almost to my knees! When we arrived, the rain stopped. That night when we went back home, we usually have to cross a bridge to get to the other side of town, but they are widening the bridge and so they had to demolish it, so there was no bridge to cross. Since they knocked the bridge, they built a side walk down in the riverbed where a river should be, but there isn't one. Well, apparently when it doesn't rain often, but when it does, it is really bad for the town. There was so much water that the river filled up. The side walk that we use to cross was underwater, so we had to cross the river. Luckily there wasn't a current, but the water was up to my waste basically. It wasn't fun! I almost fell in because of the slippery mud on the bottom! HA! So that happened! But wait....there's more.... So since the bridge is down, there is another road to cross where the road goes down into the riverbed. Well, with all the rain, this road flooded over making it difficult for cars to pass. Well, the next day, we chose to take this route to cross hoping we could get a ride in a pick-up to cross the river. Luckily we did! Later that day coming back, the Branch president gave us a ride in his car and the water was almost up to the open widows of the car! So crazy! So much water! Later that day we went with a member to pick up that same youth who works at the store to go home. We hitched another ride in a pick-up and made it across. However, when we returned to cross again, we got a ride in a pick-up, but the water current was much more rapid and there was more water that they closed the pass and wouldn't let anyone cross. This whole pass is bad because it is the only one from the line to Penasco, so there were a huge line of cars from the border full of Americans going to Penasco and a bunch of people from Penasco going to the border...no one seemed happy....So we left with the member and went to a nearby gas station to eat something because we were all hungry! This was about 8PM at night. After eating a bit we decided to return to see if they were letting people pass and if not, we decided we were going to bunk at the church that night. Luckily, they were letting only SUVs and trucks pass, so we were able to hitch another ride and pass through the water for the 4th time that day! Crazy stuff! And there was the same problem yesterday and apparently today is not different. So moral of the story....when it rains, it is bad for Sonoyta! But it was a fun adventure! Well that was my! Quite full of eventfulness! Ha! Something else that was really exciting! Some members went to Phoenix and I was able to get American products!!!!! They brought me back my favorite LIFE cereal, MMs and Butterfingers!!!! MMMM!!!! Unfortunately the cereal is already gone! :( They also sent some letters for me! So nice of them! Well, I hope you all enjoyed this mini-book! Here's to another week! I love and miss you all tons and hope you are well! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner