Week 21 - Feliz Navidad!!

Feliz Navidad Everyone:

Not a lot of time today but just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  As a Zone today, we got together and watched Elf and exchanged White Elephant Gifts.  I will tell you all more about the week next week.  Being a Missionary at Christmas time is the greatest.  I Love the people of Mexico.

Love 

Elder Fawcett

(Note from Family)

We were thrilled to be able to talk with Elder Fawcett on Christmas. He looked and sounded wonderful! His Spanish is coming along really well and it was fun to hear him speak Spanish back and forth with his older brother. He continues to work hard and is certain he’ll be transferring with the next changes. Although he expressed that being a missionary can be challenging at times, he loves being a missionary and serving the people of Mexico. 

Christmas With My Zone
White Elephant Gift Exchange

Elders McBreaitry and Fawcett

Elder Fawcett and His Brothers

Week 20 - Baseball With The Orphans!

Hola Everyone:

So, this past week was really great!  Last Monday after writing home, we went and hung out at the Church as a Zone.  We played frisbee, ate pizza and just sort of messed around so that was pretty fun.  On Tuesday, we had Zone Conference and that was also pretty cool.  President Kimball always has a good message and we were able to have a tower building contest which my group won.  Also, we talked a little bit about Christmas and how all of that was going to go. 

As for our investigators.  So, on Sunday night, we met with the Bishop about Imburto who is the homeless guy that I told you about last week.  We have been teaching him a lot this past week but we have also been working on getting a Bus ticket for him so he can go home.  He is someone that would definitely get baptized here but we arranged with the Bishop to send him back home on Tuesday so we will give his information to the missionaries there and they and finish teaching him!  Angela came to Church yesterday for the first time with her husband who has not been to Church for like 10 years so that was really great because we were almost to the point to where we were going to have to drop them.  Now we are going to continue teaching her and work on getting her and husband married with they have to do before she can get baptized.

Lacero and Filomina are progressing. Lacero is the one that wasn’t home last time when we tried to teach him. He said that he wasn’t home because after reading the Book of Mormon he had a strong desire to go drinking. So, he started drinking again after being sober for three months. He started relapsing and drinking every day. We are working with him to overcome it and we are going to try to give him the 12-step plan that the Church does. Filomina and their son are doing great. We just are hoping to get them to come to Church, but it’s hard for them because they work. It makes it difficult sometimes when your investigators work on Sunday and can’t make it to Church. Most of them work at the markets, which makes it hard to get them to Church.

Next, we have Erica and Allen who are progressing investigators too because they came to Church today for the very first time. They sat with my Companion during Sacrament Meeting while I sat with Angela. We anticipate that they will be setting a baptism date soon. 

Another one of our investigators is Elizabeth. We aren’t sure how much longer she’ll be one of our investigators due to the fact that she lives in a different area. Her husband and kids come to our Ward because the husband was baptized in our Ward before they changed the area a long time ago. He still lives with his parents because there are issues between him and his wife. So, we aren’t sure what will happen there. So that’s it for the investigator update. We have many more investigators, but the ones I mention are doing great and progressing.

We are still rat free and finally have food back in our house which is really nice. Its nice to be able to walk into our kitchen and see food. It’s great!!

So, remember how I told you guys in the last letter that we were going to play baseball with the prisoners on Friday as a reward! Well I went to Pachuca on Friday but we actually got our reward on Saturday but we didn’t’ get to go and play with the prisoners because the First Presidency denied it twice when the Seventy over our area proposed it to them. So, we went to an orphanage instead and played wiffle ball with them.  That was a really cool experience to be able to share some time with the kids there who have nothing and have a little fun with them!  On Friday since I was in Pachuca, I was able to do some contacting up there and it was neat because it was in a really safe area compared to mine and it had bikes. So, I got to ride a bike all day long and that was really cool!  I hope my next area is a biking area although I have heard quite a few missionaries have gotten hurt and have broken jaws, noses, teeth and have gotten cut pretty bad.  

In closing, as I said before, we talked about Christmas at our Zone Conference this past week.  I am excited to call home next week but mentally, I am in a really good place with myself right now so I am really going to try and keep the focus on the mission that I have been able to get!  This year I get to spend Christmas with my Zone Family and we are going to be watching Elf and exchanging White Elephant Gifts.  I Love being a missionary and serving the people of Mexico.

Love 

Elder Fawcett

Elder's Reese, McBreaitry, Moreno and Fawcett
Being a Missionary Doesn't Mean Sometimes You Can't Eat Good!

Zone Conference

Our Zone

Building Contest

Where Is One More Marshmallow?

We Won!!!

Baseball With the Orphans

Half the Winning Zone

Pants Have Gotten a Little Big

Notice the Little Boy

Elder Fawcett Loves Kids

2 Knee Surgeries Makes it a Good Seat!

New Found Friend!

Staring Down The President

President Staring Back!!

Missionaries and Kids

Missionaries and President and Sister Kimball

Week 19 - Getting Tan While Contacting!

Hola Everyone:

Well, it's been a busy week. We've worked extremely hard this week and everything has been going good with my new Companion, Elder McBreaitry.  After he got here last week, we sat down and kind of decided to start over from scratch with this area.  We still have some existing investigators, but Elder Castro liked to work mostly with referrals so we have decided now to start working more on getting contacts off of the street.  In our mission, we are supposed to get 15 contacts a day and we have been working really hard on doing that.  In fact, I am getting super tan because we have been out on the street so much this week and it is still hot here so it is too bad to hear how cold it is back home!

So, one of the people we contacted this week is a guy in his 30’s who got caught up in the drug cartel stuff that goes on down here.  So, a while back, he left his family because of the drugs and now he is homeless and has been selling the things he has just to survive but he is starting to run out of things to sell.  He actually came to church yesterday and we gave him some of the clothes that we have found in our house while cleaning up this past week that have been left by other missionaries. While teaching him, he has told us how much he regrets his decision to leave his girlfriend and daughter and he really wants to go back to them.  In working with the Bishop, we are working on getting him a bus ticket so that he can go home!

Besides contacting, one of our existing investigators we've been visiting with is Angela.   She's nice and she really likes the lessons. She’s really open to all that we have taught her, but the problem is she won't come to church. We've extended the invitation multiple times and she still just hasn't come to church. We actually invited many people to come to church this past week, but most of them did not show up.  In order for our investigators to qualify for baptism, they need to attend church three times. Since we are still doing the Ironman 212 baptisms goal in the Mission, today was the first day they needed to come to church to be part of the Ironman for this month.  Anyway, I don't know if you guys remember the lady that I told you about a few weeks ago that we followed home in order to give her a blessing, their names are Lacero and Filomina and they are really receptive to our message and things with them are going pretty good but it is really hard to get both her and her husband home at the same time so we can teach them. 

So, as far as investigator go, we have quite a few and I haven’t told you about a lot of them but they just will not come to Church in order to progress.  Coming to Church is like the second thing an investigator needs to do in order to progress behind praying but for some reason they just will not come! They like for us to come over and teach them but most of them are just not progressing very well and it is sort of frustrating.  If they don’t start coming, we are unfortunately going to have to dump some of them because we don’t have time for investigators that do not progress.

So as for Montes Dos, the split off of this Area, the two missionaries over there are Elders Reese from Coalville Utah and he is going home on 14 January 2019 so this will be his last change.  His Companion is Elder Moreno from Chile and he has blonde hair and is super white and came into the Mission the same time I did but doesn’t speak any English.  Anyway, they eat lunch with us everyday and as we walk around with them, although only 3 of us are American, with him being blonde and white, they think we are all Gringos!

So, a few interesting things coming up this next week, so I learned that our Zone won the Baptismal challenge for this past change so as a reward, this coming Friday, we get to go to Pachuca to play baseball at the Penitentiary with a bunch of prisoners! So, yea, that should be pretty interesting getting to play baseball with a bunch of Mexican prisoners who are in there for doing who knows what so that is this coming Friday!  Also, we have our next Zone Conference coming up where we might find out about the new Mission President that will be taking over in July.

I love being a missionary and serving the awesome people of Mexico!

Love,

Elder Fawcett

My New Companion, Elder McBreaitry

Week 18 - Light the World

Hola Everyone:

So, it is time for Changes and yep my Companion Elder Castro is leaving me to become the Zone Leader in another part of the Mission!  My new Companion is an American and his name is Elder McBreaitry from West Lafayette Indiana and has been on his mission for 20 months. He is fluent in Spanish so it should be a different experience speaking Spanish with another American but everyone learns differently so maybe this will really help me out a lot!

With this week being Changes, I am learning that it is sort of a down week as people get ready to go but we were still able to get some things done and teach a few lessons.  For starters, we visited with Daphne and Xochit this past week and started the new member discussion with them and they are really doing good.  Also, I went on splits with Elder Williams in my Area and we were able to contact a few people.  One of the Ladies we contacted was really interest in the Church and were able to get her to commit her to a baptismal date of 28 December but she has to get married before that can happen so we will have to see if things progress well or not.

So, on Saturday, we did something really cool as a Zone activity, we kicked off the “Light the World” campaign.  Yea, it was really cool because we sang Hymns, gave out free hot chocolate as well as the Light the World card.  We contacted a lot of people from the activity so we will see how that goes with them.

On Sunday, we went to a special Stake Conference where they formed the “New Hero’s Stake” as well as a new Stake in the Tizayuca Area. As part of all that, they did split off part of our Mission and gave it to the Mexico City Mission but my Area of Montes is actually going to stay in the Pachuca Mission but they are splitting it into 2 Areas Montes 1 and 2.  So, the new place to live we found last week will be for the Elders in the other half of our Area.  

Anyway, pretty short letter today but it should be interesting this week to meet my new Companion and to work with another American every day!  I Love being a missionary and I Love the Mexican People!

Love 

Elder Fawcett

Sending Off Elder Castro

Light the World Pamphlets

Singing at Stake Conference

If Only his Choir Teacher Could See Him Now!

Making 2 New Stakes!