Monday, January 7, 2013 - 2013....My Black Year....

Hola Mi Familia! Haha! I say black year because it will be the one whole entire year that will be spent in the mission. A little bit of 2012 was spent at home, and most of 2014 will be spent at home, but ALL of 2013 will be here in Sonora, Mexico! But let me just tell you how fast time flies! Too fast! It is uber crazy to believe that tomorrow I will complete 11 MONTHS!!!! That is just 1 MONTH away from being 1 YEAR!!!! That is completely nuts! I can't even begin to think! 2012 went by way too fast, and so much happened that year! Now on to a new year with new adventures and experiences and new things to learn. This week was full of quite a few experiences! I am happy to announce that we bought another water heating rod thing and I no longer have to bathe with cold water again! I have become quite intolerable to the cold. I love the cold in the US because we have heating systems and water heaters, etc., but here, it just seems like it is impossible to get warm and that you are always cold. It can be a pain. Monday we didn't have any invitations for New Years Eve, so we just went home and went to sleep. Other events of this week: I was walking and talking on the phone and not really looking where I was going when I was suddenly grounded. I picked myself up with a bad pain in my head and found a lot of blood coming out of my head. I had hit my head on the corner of a tin awning. We went back to the house, but I didn't have anything to clean my head with, so we went straight to our lunch appointment and the family that we ate with took me to a doctor to get me cleaned up. Well, the doc wrapped me all up in gauze to keep blood from going wherever and he gave me a prescription for pills to take to prevent an infection/attracting bacteria since I am a gringo and he also told me to protect my head this week and wear a hat. So that has been pretty fun being able to wear a hat this week and not having to do my hair! After about 3 days or so, I became annoyed and took my bandages off and the wound has been fine and is healing. But that was some fun for this week, no? Also, we were looking for less actives this week and found one, but this story doesn't have a happy ending. This sister said that she had a bad experience when she was baptized and that she would sit in meetings alone and that no one would befriend her and she felt out of the loop and alone and inactivated. Well, later on another church found her and she let them begin to teach her. She said that she is much happier with them and that they are teaching her to read the bible and all this good stuff that she was never taught with the Elders. We set up an appointment to return to try and teach her a message or lesson. When we went back the other day, she was just finishing her classes with one of the church’s and so we happily went in hoping for a bible session. We began to say that we wanted to share a message and wanted to start with a prayer and the lady just freaked out asking how we pray and that we don't pray right and all this stuff and then we pulled out scriptures from the bible that confounded her and she shut up and said that she had been there for a while and that she was leaving. Well, for the next almost 3 hours we had a nice little chat with a TON of bible evidence and etc. It was a little hard for me because my hot spot is the Book Of Mormon and I don't know near as much about the bible as I would like to, but it just gave me a bunch of encouragement to study the bible more and it showed me how much amazing stuff the bible has. It seemed like this sister was quite new in the teachings of the other church and didn't know as much and something’s that we taught her seemed to impact her. But, in the end, she said that we could come back and "chat", but that she was happy where she was. That was quite sad to hear, but everyone has their agency. The saddest part is that she was baptized in the church, but has turned away and doesn't wish to come back. Oh, well, we did what we could. As far as investigators are going, we have a lady who is so ready to get baptized and knows everything is true and the lesson and the church has changed her life, but the only thing that is holding her up is that she wants to read the entire Book Of Mormon before being baptized. We set a date of the 27th of this month to help her, but she is still in 2 Nephi. We also set a baptismal date of Feb. 3rd, so we will see how that goes. We also have another girl. She is 9 years old and the daughter of the sister that was baptized the first week I was here. She as a date for the 19th of this month and it is pretty much a sure baptism. The only thing with her is that she is very shy and doesn't talk to us for ANYTHING! She will talk to her mom and all, but is very timid and doesn't talk to anyone else. She smiles and laughs silently and will nod her head, but won't speak a word! that is quite hard We even had a lesson of just playing games to see if we could get her confidence more and be more like friends, but she still hasn't opened up at all. So I guess we will just have to "keep on keeping on" as my 10th grade science teacher would say. Not too much else worth nothing happened this week. I was able to play piano in church yesterday which made me really happy! I wasn't told the hymns in advance so I had to sight-read all of them, but I did do quite well If I do say so myself. I was quite proud. I think my piano skills have improved while in the mission! We DID go to Office Depot this morning and that was quite an experience for me that I quite enjoyed! I love going to American Institutions. A little piece of my home land! Well, I hope you all have a nice week returning to school and work and all. You are half way done for the school year! Yay! Way to go! Haha! I love and miss you all tons! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner