Week 26 - End of Iron Man 212

Hola Everyone:

Well, this past week has been one heck of a week and we have really been working hard!  Opening up an Area is really hard and we have spent most of our time out on the streets contacting people.  So far, we have not gotten a lot of solid contacts that way but thankfully we have the member contacts, Teresa and Jorge that I told you about last week and they are progressing really well.  They came to church again this week and we have taught them Lesson Two and they are still committed to being baptized here really soon. 

On Sunday, we also had a guy just show up to church and he told us that he has been attending the Providence Ward which is next to ours, but he really doesn’t feel welcome in the Ward. So, he wants to start coming to our Ward and have Elder Bodegas and I teach him the Gospel.  We have to get that ok’d with President Kimball, but we are thinking that will probably go pretty good.

So, on Wednesday, on the way to District Meeting, I started to feel sick.  Now I am not just talking about a little sick, I felt like I was dying inside.  My head was throbbing and I felt like I was burning up while the rest of my body was freezing.  I ached all over, especially in my back.  Everyone in my District could see that I didn’t feel very good so they called Sister Kimball and she told them to take me home to get some sleep. When I got home, I took a bunch of Ibuprofen because honestly, I have never felt so sick in all my life!   I ended up staying home for most of the day, but later on Wednesday night, I started feeling a tiny bit better and we had two appointments set up so we went out and taught both of those lessons.  After the lessons were over, I again started to feel super bad so Elder Bodegas said we needed to go to the Bishop’s house.  The Bishop and his wife made me some lemon/honey tea stuff and then another some sort of drink along with 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen and some sort of vapor rub and sent us home.

Luckily Thursday I woke up and felt a lot better because we had our Zone Conference.  Sister Kimball talked to me and was really glad that I was feeling better because based on the symptoms I had, she couldn’t figure out what I had but thought that maybe it was some sort of really bad food poisoning.  Anyway, Zone Conference was really cool and we got these medals because as a Mission we succeeded in the Iron Man 212.  Basically, that was a goal of our mission getting 212 baptisms in a 3-month period and we actually got 219.  President and Sister Kimball are really big into Iron Man completions so they had us all line up and called each of our names and said where we were from as we ran down the middle.  At the end of the line they gave each of us a medal.  Everyone got a white one but some of us also got a blue one for getting the goal of 3 or more baptism per companionship and Elder Castro and I had 4. 

Overall, Zone Conference was really cool! We also set up a new goal for the mission for bring people to Christ, the President call our new goal, the Battle for the Army of Helaman.  It is different from the Iron Man 212 because I just doesn’t focus on baptisms, but also focuses on getting people back to church, ordained to the Priesthood and a bunch of other things.  It is really cool and we will be working on that for the next few months.  The real highlight of Zone Conference was that we found out that on February 13th, Elder Quentin R. Cook from the 12 Apostles will be coming and visiting just with the missionaries in our mission. Everyone will get to shake his hand and I am hoping to get a picture with him as well!

Thursday night after dinner, I started feeling super sick again.  Friday morning and Saturday, I felt pretty awful the entire time, but I just battled through it and kept working the best I could.  Sunday morning it was pretty much gone and so I hope that I am finally over whatever it was that I had, but I guess that is just life as a missionary!

I hope everyone at home has a great week, I really love it here in Mexico!

Love

Elder Fawcett

Smoke Filled Pachuca

Fires Around Pachuca

Contacting with Elder Bodegas

Streets We Contact On

Zone Meeting

Happy B-Day Elder Fawcett This Month

Iron Man Medal Ceremony

Metal Presentation

MTC District

My Medals

District P-Day Bowling

President and Sister Kimball

Week 25 - Starting from Scratch

Hola Everyone:

I don’t have a lot of time today so sorry for the short letter!  This past week, Elder Bodegas and I have really been working super hard and have been contacting like crazy.  We both got here last week to open up this area and soon found that we were starting from absolutely nothing.  Tuesday morning, we started off by hitting the streets contacting people.  Each of us have been getting about 15 contacts each everyday this week which is sort of nuts.  The goal for the mission is to contact 15 people per companionship so we are doing double that!

I have been rejected a ton everyday and also have been sworn at quite a bit but honestly, it is really no worse than Montes was and in fact in some aspects it is actually a little better.  In addition to contacting this past week, we have also tried to visit a lot of the members in the San Fernando Ward and let them know that we are opening this area for missionary work. So far, we have not had a lot of success with that although we did get one good referral. Her name is Teresa and she is an older lady who has taken some of the lessons in the past. She came to Church with us on Sunday with her Nephew Jorge and it was really cool because she said that she could feel something different about our church.  Elder Bodegas and I took that moment to make a challenge to her and her nephew for baptism on the 9th of February which they accepted.  So, we are really hyped about that after only being in the area for one really hard week!

We have really been trying hard in this new area this week and I can really tell you that opening a new area is really hard to do!  This coming week, we have set up a couple of visits with other people in the Ward who are part member families so we are really hoping to be able to start teaching the other people in their families.

So, something that has been happening down here in Mexico that you probably know more about than I do is something with the gasoline.  I guess they turned off the pipelines for some reason, although I heard people were cutting into the pipeline to steal gas. That resulted in huge fires and a lot of people getting killed and burned really bad here in my mission. With the pipeline turned off, they are bringing in gas to all of the stations using big huge heavily guarded trucks.  That has resulted in there being shortages, so there are insane lines to get gas at all of the gas stations.  
  
Anyway, we don’t have to worry too much about the gas because in this area, we have bikes which I have learned are really not that great of quality and really hurt my butt and legs.  I guess the good thing is that my leg muscles and knees are getting a lot stronger here.

I am really excited to be working / opening up this new area although it is pretty hard.  I know that by following the Spirit and doing our best every day we will be able to find those people who are looking for the True Gospel.  I Love being a missionary!

Love,

Elder Fawcett

                                                                                   New Life Skills!!!

My New Area

Streets of Pachuca

Typical Homes in Area

Doing My Laundry in a Bucket!

Full Moon in Mexico

Blood Moon Solar Eclipse we Saw

Week 24 - Opening a New Area!

Hola,

Well, today was transfers. I was transferred to a new area in Pachuca called San Fernando and my Zone is Pachuca Central. My new companion is none other than Elder Bodegas who I have known for a long time and he is from Guatemala. I’m super excited about that! He only speaks Spanish, so that’s good and I am hoping that he will be able to teach me a lot of Spanish!  We are both opening this new area and it looks like we are going to be all over the place. My previous companion, Elder McBreaitry was telling me that since Elder Bodegas and I are opening this new area, that means that either he’s probably only going to stay here for a cycle or I’m only going to stay here a cycle. And then someone’s probably going to leave, but not always. So, I guess we’ll see what happens. But for the most part, I’m pretty satisfied with the changes. I was ready for something new. We are excited to start working hard in this new area. 

As far as an update on investigators, when I left Tecamac we had found a family of four that I told you about last week. They are Gabriela, Melanie, Angel, and Valerie.  We taught them this past week and things are going pretty good with them. The only thing is, is their son has some kind of mental issues and he will stare. He also suffers with anger issues. We went over there to teach them and when we arrived, he had thrown all of the family’s clothes outside. It made us feel bad because his mom is a single mom and tries really hard. So, the son has some issues. But we have given him a blessing and they have set a date to be baptized and I hope that they do. I plan on going back to the area to see them get baptized if I can So, that’s going to be fun but that’s all as far as my investigators go. 

As far as Elder Bodegas and I know, we do not have anyone to teach right now since it’s a new area.  So, we really have our work cut out for us but I am really excited to serve with him! 

Lately, I’ve been asked quite a bit to share my testimony. So, I decided to share it the best I can. My time on my mission has helped me grow in so many ways. Growth, like most things, isn’t always a comfortable thing. There have been many times on my mission when the pain or the discomfort of the growth of my testimony has driven me to tears and to my knees to plead with The Father. The growth of a testimony can sometimes hurt due to things or experiences you are going through. However, every single challenge and every pain we go through as mortals has already been felt by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  There is not one thing we could feel or go through that He has not felt and suffered through. On my mission and throughout my own conversion, I have come to know the need of the Gospel in one’s life. Sadly, many of my friends and others I know have decided that they don’t need the Gospel or the Church and they think it restricts them. To these people I just want to say that you are wrong. If you choose to live your life without the Gospel you might have temporal happiness, but it will all come to an end some day! Sin isn’t happiness (Alma 41:10) and just because you may not understand the Church or the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. It really hurts my heart to see others disrespect the Gospel and live a life of sin. After seeing some people get married here in Mexico, I have noticed more often than not, they aren’t married in the temple. As a missionary, I issue this reminder; Marriage is only eternal if two people are sealed in the temple. I am beyond grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, without it I wouldn’t be a missionary. Repentance and forgiveness are a true gift of The Lord. I love being a missionary and for the opportunity to be serving the wonderful people of Mexico. 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Fawcett 

                                                                                Elder Fawcett's New Home

Elder's Fawcett and McBreiatry with Member in Tecamac

My New Home in Pachuca

Front Room

Our Kitchen

Bathroom

Beds

My Closet

My Desk

Week 23 - 3 Kings Day

Hola Everyone:

So yesterday was 3 Kings Day here in Mexico and it is a pretty interesting holiday! The whole holiday remembers the 3 Wisemen that went to Jesus Christ’s birth and arrived 12 days after he was born. So, it is celebrated sort of like Christmas, just 12 days later on January 6^th.  As a part of the holiday here in Mexico, they make a sweet bread called “rosca del rey” which is meant to represent a King’s crown.  Inside the bread, they bake in a little baby Jesus doll and whoever gets the piece of bread with that inside has to make/buy tamales at the fiesta de la Candelaria on February 2.  This celebration is the last of the Christmas festivities, 40 days after Jesus’s birth.  So, anyway that is a pretty cool tradition and yesterday we ate a lot of bread!

Last Tuesday was P-Day and President gave us the whole day for P-Day and we first went to the Church and wrote our letters home and then went to the Jordan Families house for Pizza and to say goodbye to Elder Mendez. Tuesday was Elder Mendez’s last day in the Field, he had to go back to Guatemala a week early so that he could get into school. Also, that night, we went over to our Bishop’s house and President had given us permission to watch the movie “Nacho Libre” with them in Spanish.  Honestly it wasn’t as funny in Spanish but it’s all good!

With Elder Mendez leaving last week, they had to close the area he was in because there are quite a few missionaries going home right now and there are not any coming in to back-fill them.  So, with him leaving we had to pick up the investigators that they had and we have been doing a lot of contacting and this area is really turning around.  One of the days, we contacted this Family and their names are Gabriela, Melanie, Angel and Valerie.  They are really good and have been in contact with the missionaries before, but they are advancing pretty fast and have a baptismal date for the 2^nd of February.  Our other investigators are also coming along pretty good, but we haven’t met much with them this week with them all just coming back from the holiday.

The area is really starting to do well, but unfortunately, I will probably be getting transferred out next week!  I have been here for 3 cycles and that is usually all President leaves us in any one place. So, I probably will not be here to see them all finish up!

This week at Church, we started the “Come Follow Me” plan.  We have been teaching the members about it and I think that it is either going to be a really good thing or a bad thing.  We have been telling people that learning is now going to be a lot more up to them so we will have to see how it goes.

It has been a pretty good week. We are starting to see a lot of the fruits of all of our contacting from the past few weeks and so I am sort of sad to probably being transferred.  The good thing is that my next area will not be as dangerous as Tecamac Montes so I will be able to get some more interesting pictures.  One of my pictures for this week is a sweater that the Jordan family made and gave to me for Christmas which is really cool.

I Love it here in Mexico and I Love being able to be a missionary every day!

Love, 

Elder Fawcett

District Goodbye to Elder Mendez

Christmas Present from Jordan Family

Breakfast

Week 22 - My Worst Week in the Mission!

Hola Everyone and Happy New Year’s:

So, P-Day this week as you can tell is on Tuesday because of New Year’s Eve being on Monday.  So last night, we had to be in our Apartment by dark which is around 5:00 here in Mexico because of the bad things that go on around the City during New Year’s Eve.  With not a whole lot to do, Elder McBreaitry and I just played Mexican Monopoly, which is way cooler by the way, for the night!

Honestly, this past week has been one of the worst I have had in the Mission Field!  For most of the week, I have been really pretty sick and it has made most days pretty miserable!  Also, with it being the holiday season, none of our appointments have shown up and when we have contacted the people we are teaching, they have all told us that they are just too busy right now to meet with us.  All of our other investigators are out of town for the holiday’s so it has been pretty slow. We have spent a lot of time on the street trying to contact but with me being sick, it has just not been that great of a week!

To tell all of you a little bit about how Christmas went last week, so the entire Mission went to Pachuca last Monday for Christmas Eve Day.  The day started out with all of us lining up, taking off our shirts and getting our Flu shots for the year! From there, we went and had a Christmas Devotional which was really great.  After the devotional, we had our Mission lunch of Mexican Taco’s and cake which was all really good. 

After lunch, President Kimball brought out some Piñata’s which were filled with candy.  The Sister Missionaries went first and broke the first one.  For the second one, I was the second Elder selected to hit the Piñata and well, let just say there wasn’t a third person needed.  It was all really fun and we broke open a few more Piñata’s.  From there, we all went back in the Church and presented skits as Zones.  Our skit was about Harry Potter.  To end out the meeting, President and Sister Kimball gave all of us a Christmas present.  The Sister missionaries received a bag like thing and the Elder’s all got a sock tie which was really cool.  From there, we all went back to our Area’s and as I mentioned last week, our Zone met at our Stake center on Christmas Day and watched Elf and exchanged White Elephants.  I got a rubber chicken for my gift!

On Wednesday, we just went back to work just like every other day.  Well, now I know what it is like to go through the holiday’s as a missionary!  Honestly, it wasn’t that bad and I am grateful to have been able to spend this year serving Jesus Christ and the people of Mexico.  Although I am still sick today, I know that it is just another part of the experience of being a missionary!  Hopefully I will get feeling better soon and can fully concentrate on the work. 

I hope everyone has a great New Year and I can’t wait for the adventures that the Lord has for me this coming year in Mexico.  Oh, just about forgot, so they are really proud of the way they cut hair down here and right before Christmas, I got my authentic Mexican hair cut with the shaved parting line and all!

Love

Elder Fawcett

Pachuca Mission Christmas Eve Picture 2018

President and Sister Kimball and the Doctor

Just Like the Army, Lining Up to Get Flu Shots!

Christmas Devotional

Devotional

Meat for the Taco's

Mexican Taco's

Christmas Lunch

Most of the Mission

Sister Kimball and Elder Fawcett

Notice the Faces of the Missionaries!

Must Have Been a Good Hit!

Must Be More Than Candy in There!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Presents!