Martin Carrera - War!

Dear Fam!

   

    Well this week was GREAT! I mean the work is always good but this week was good we could see more progression in our area! Right now we are working a lot with Carlos to help him be prepared for his baptism... his date was suppose to be for this up coming Sunday but he couldn't get anyone to work his tienda while he was gone... so he will have to wait a little while longer till he has assistencias!  We went and taught him last night about keeping the Sabbath day holy and how he needs to pray and ask if he should close his store on Sundays... he his worried because right now things are slow but I know the Lord will bless him he just needs to put his faith to the TEST! 

We have also been working a lot with Gilberto y Particia... they are a 50 year couple that are like the sweetest people ever. Gilberto is just so ready to accept the gospel and has accepted a baptismal date... Patty not yet but she just wants to see the church first... they couldn't get to church because she was in the Doctor yesterday but this upcoming for sure they will be there. I think Patricia is so funny though because she has black women eyes and is so intense but I just love them both. 

We have also been working with Rogelio. He is also someone that is very prepared to hear the gospel... he was in prison a couple years ago and there he found God. He contacted us on the street and hasn't been able to get to church yet but we talked with him yesterday and he best be there this Sunday... I have faith in that man! 

  Also with Adriana, Dylan and Brandon... they are my favorite! They are a family that a ton of missionaries have taught and we just recently started teaching them again because the missionaries were really only teaching Dylan but then he got a job and disappeared.  They have an interesting story... about 4 years ago Adriana's husband was murdered and so the plan of salvation is something really important to them. Brandon is a funny kid he is 13 but like gigantic he is like the tallest mexican I know and reminds me of Chris... The other day we were talking about the nature of God and we were like what is god like and Brandon was like hmmmm with a beard and we were all laughing so hard. He also has a lot of interest in Cain... haha because the dang elders liked to talk about Cain apparently and Brandon has a lot of interest in his curse hahah. We love them and they will be baptized before I leave Carrera, I am determined!

So funny story... this past Wednesday night I woke up to something at 4 30! I literally thought that someone broke into our house... well nope it wasn't a person it was THE CAT! Yes the battle continues and we shall not be defeated! It peed all over my nice suitcase that Julie bought me and idk really how to wash a suit case but i just kinda scrubbed it and soaked it in the shower. haha but yes the dang cat got back in because we cracked the window because it was hot!  No worries we went to the offices and bought a fan!

Also this week we had zone conference and it was really good. We were just focusing a lot on the basic doctrines of Christ and I learned so much and the ways I can be better as a missionary! Funny story on the way there we (as in the whole zone) took the metro at 8 30 in the morning to get to zone conference and idk if I have ever explained the metro to you guys but its CRAZY! Its like a mosh pit where people are literally on top of you and people take a running start in to get it... no lie! So there we were zona estrella waitng and waiting till a some what empty metro passes by to get in and we gave up so we decided to battle to get to zone conference on time .... the first time around me hna Woodard and two elders got in. We were cramped in there and couldn't move and we couldn't see each other but we were trying to stay close to the doors so we could get out at the next stop... haha but one of the elders didn't get out so we waited for him to come back and luckily everyone made it and we made it right on time!  Yeah metro is always an adventure!

Also miracle of the week we were going to visit a nuevo with hna valdez and of course the lady doesn't show but instead we find Gorgonio in the park! He is an 87 year old who I just love... his wife's dying wish was for him to get baptized so they can get sealed and we have visited him a couple times and everyone time we ask him why he didn't get baptized he tells us quien sabe.... so anyways this time in the park hna Valdez told him his wife's dying wish to her and that if she couldn't help him get baptized hna Valdez would feel bad for not completing her promise... well anyways he accepted and baptismal date for the end of March! 

So yeah lots of good stuff goin here in Carrera... we have transfers next week... hna Woodard is pretty sure she is leaving and I will probs stay unless they take us both out and i hope that doesn't happen. So I will write next Wednesday. Sorry we didn't really take pics this week but just one of us in our new glasses we bought because lets be honest here... you all know my love for glasses and it just turns out that hna Woodard has the same love haha.  Love you all so much... Thanks for the pics.  What Deann had a new baby?... shes super cute! Madre have fun in the Holy land and bring me back something cool and save it for when I get home! Dueces!

  

hermanita heywood

Martin Carrera - Bienvenidos a El Papa

Dear Fam BAM! Well well well this week was crazy with the Pope and everything. We had to leave our area last Thursday and we didn't get back in the area till Sunday night! But I guess it was crazy and all the roads were closed and a lot of the people here were not happy with his visit because it was so much money for him to be here. But hey its all good. Well before we got kicked out of our area we had a good two and a half days here in Carrera.

Here we are with our nice gifts.

   We have been focusing on all the people we have found in the last couple weeks and getting them into teaching and what not. One of the new couples we are teaching are named Gilberto and Patricia and they are cool. Anyways fumy story this week we were teaching them and there Dad was sitting on the lesson and her Dad is OLD and CATHOLIC! hah anyways he was like oh you are Mormons i am not going to say anything to you guys I will keep my opinion to myself... so the whole lesson he didn't say anything just sat in the corner and listened. And then after we had ended with the prayer he was like OKAY can I just say something.... you Mormons are crazy and he just went off and he was like so I have a present for you girls because I want to help you and he gave us a alcoholics anonymous book and told us to read it and it would CHANGE OUR LIVES FOREVER! haha Our investigators were both just laughing so hard at us and they said, "don't listen to him he is crazy" and he was like NO this is your tarea and you have to read it and show me the parts you highlighted. haha So we have those books now! Everyone is doing good here we are just trying to get more people to accept baptismal dates!

   Well Thursday morning we had to go to CV and we went and were secretaries in the offices for a couple hours till presidente got out of a meeting to tell us what we are suppose to do. Well then we worked in the CV that day and it was fun! We did this thing called teaching center and its from mormon.org where is says they can chat... well when people do chat they are actually talking to hnas from the CV all over the world. So that was cool and I chatted with some interesting people. Then they can also call and my settings were in English and Spanish so I did both and it was so weird to teach on the phone in English.  I mean I was totally talking spanglish. Its hard to use gospel vocabulary in Englias but it was fun. We also gave one tour in the CV and it was fun. Mine I gave yesterday; it was a couple that meet on internet they are both members and their first date was yesterday at the CV and it was valentines day and they were talking about when they were gonna have their sealing and me and the hna were like WHAT .. today is the first time you have meet physically and you are talking about marriage! Crazy

With our home girls; Dias and Cordova

   The rest of the time we did divisones with the hnas in their areas because they either go to their areas in the morning or in the afternoon. It was fun to learn from them and also because they are all latinas so they helped me correct some of my spanish grammar errors! I worked with hnas Rivas from Ecuador, Hna Diez from Hidalgo Mexico, Hna Candido from Brasil and hna Hernadez from Mexico. It was fun and they were all so fun and different and they think me and hna woodard are crazy jaja buts its just because we are happy! While we were in the CV we taught the hnas how to use a dishwasher because none of them knew what it was hahah. We also got to wash our clothes and I was able to take a hot shower for like 30 mins it was CRAZY! Also guess what we saw the cat on our roof the other night that peeded on everything ahhh dang cat. haha But all is well here in Mexico , I hope you are all doing good and everyone is happy. LAUREN FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS! And happy late valentines day! Love you all here are some pics!

love Hermanita Heywood

I'm  doing it wrong!

Our suitcases are filled with our laundry!

Martin Carrera - Hola, Hola, Hola

As for this week... we honestly were just running around like crazy with lots to do! First of all we did divisons twice this week so literally we had no time to rest at night or even a lot of time to do our studies because is was CRAZY! But good... I always learn a lot from the other hermanas in the mish! One day hna woodard had a meeting so me and another hna came back to Carrera to work and I think she was kinda shocked at how ugly it is here because her area is basically the states haha so that was fun to see her reaction. Then the next day we had divisons and woodard went to olivos and I stayed here and again and hna houghton came! WE had fun together she was the one hna i got lost with a couple months ago so we had some laughs from that. The other thing this week was we were just looking alot for nuevos and we have been searching a lot for people so we can teach more and more. Also i have GRIPA! haha its just a cold... but here in Mexico having a cold (GRIPA) is life or death... if you have gripa you might as well stay in the house and not leave for a week so everyone freaks out and tells me i need to go rest and take meds till its goes away.... but its all good I am just poppin pills and the work can still progress so there's that!

  Love all the pics, Chris looks like he had fun in the mini mish! Did he go with all 3 of those elders or what? 

As for our people here in Carrera all is well! I will start off with Louis and Carmen they are the Christians that want to baptize us... we told them to read the BOM and then call us... well they called us for another cita.. we tried to make it at the church... they said no... so we had to meet in the park. Anyways so we get there and we were like so what did you read... did you pray about it... and yeah. This is what they said. "Well we didn't read because we didn't know where to start... would it be better in the start middle or finish". ( When they said this... we were not having it because like any human does you start a book at the beginning) so then they were telling us how they wanted to talk to us because we have a light in our eyes but that light can come from Satan and that they needed to help us. Also the answer they got of the book of Mormon was a couple scripture references of false profetas and so and so... so it was obvious they didn't read. Then he was telling us how he read the bible of Satan and the word Mormon was in the book and we were like well ya know Satan is the father of all lies and if you really believe this book is of God then why did you want to meet with us. So basically they really just wanted to baptize two Mormon girls in some random Christian church and we told then we would ask God if it is something we should do and we left them with our testimony of the book of Mormon and yeah that's really all we could do... because their hearts were not open to learning or receiving an answer. They were like well its fine if you don't want to be converted into our church at least we planted the seeds in you... lol  Everyone else is good! WE have been getting alot of references for people that live in the sketchy parts of the area so we have been asking the jovenes to come with us because we cant go alone! Lots to do here and the pope is coming this weekend so we have to leave again.... we don't know when or where we are going but we just know its gonna be CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But that is mas o menos todo!!!!! I hope you all have a good week love you all lots and thanks for the pics madre y katie!

con amor,

Hermanita Heywood

Martin Carrerra - Guero y Gato

Alright family you will not believe what has gone down this week! I honestly do not know where to start so I will start with this.... today I hit 10 months on the mish... craziness! I don't like how fast time is going by! 

In the metro waiting for divisions.

      We had divisons on Wednesday and I went to Balbuena (its the same stake as Mocetzuma) and so it was fun to be close and to see some faces I already know!  Then I was pumped because we got a call from the Zone leaders and said that all of the of us needed to go to the stake center to get trash cans to fill up with water because they were going to shut off the water in the colonia... anyways so we went and it just so happens you have to walk through Mocetzuma to get to the stake center so I got to walk through my old territory and I went and said hi real quick to familia Galicia in their store and it was all fun! I was with hna Chavez so that was fun... we always have a good time! But while i was gone for a day on divisones a lot went down here in a Carrera.........

    First of all we have these two newish investigators that contacted us outside of our door one day and said they wanted to learn more... so our second cita with them was this past week and it turns out they are christian missionaries trying to convert us... the audacity! haha I guess they made hna Woodard do a weird christian prayer at the end of the cita and the cita was in the park so hahah yeah that was funny! 

 And then Javier (Micheal McClean) tried to break up with us! He came and tried to give back his book of Mormon and tell us he couldn't do it anymore but we put one more cita with him in the CV and prayed un buen! Well it turns out the next day we go to the CV and one of the CV hermanas taught him so good and so dang he was like "Okay I cant stop learning", and it was awesome! And the thing is is that is baptismal date was set for this past Sunday so we said "Javier you are ready" and he was like "no hnas" and we were like "yes" and then what do you know... we set a cita for his interview with our district leader and he passed and he got BAPTIZED! Miracle, right? 

Javier's baptism!

Practicing for the slam dunk!

    Of course something has to go wrong because the church is not as smooth here in Mexico as it is in the states and when we show up Sunday for his baptism there was no water in the font! haha So what happened is that we called the elders we share the building with the night before and told them to start the water when they got there to church (because their time is at 8 am) but they call us at like 10:30 (the baptism was suppose to happen at 11) and tell us they decided to clean the font and it just started filling up! The thing with the font is that it takes 3 hrs to fill up! So we got there and found every bucket we could and started filling the font with every bucket of water possible! We were using the water spout from the janitors closet thing... from the well... from the hose... EVERYTHING! And then at about 11:40 we started the baptism! Shout out to the 6 elders that helped us fill up the font,  Javier was baptized by a youth in our ward named Gustavo!Another thing was the stake presidente showed up to our services that day for sacrament and for once the ward actually started on time (our services start at 12) so we ended the baptism with a prayer and we ran into sacrament and got in there for the last verse of the sacrament song and it was all good! He was confirmed after we partook of the sacrament and now Javier is a baptized man with the gift of the holy ghost! #HOLA 

  Also you would not believe what else happened this week.... So you all know how I just LOVE cats right? Well it just so happens that on Thursday night one got into our house... how who knows but it was in there and marked its territory! The funny thing was we woke up at like 3 in the morning because something was crying and I was like hna woodard there is something crying in our bathroom and she was like hna nothing is in our house and so we both went back to bed! Two white girls living in Mexico City hear something in there house crying at 3 in the morning and do nothing! You might ask why we didn't do anything well its because we were EXHAUSTED and we didn't want to move so we both feel right back to sleep. Well when we woke up that morning we were in for a surprise! The fetching Gato sprayed EVERYTHING... garments, bags, q-tips... EVERYTHING! So we got permisson from presidente to go use the washing and drying machines in the CV because it is free and we had so much stuff to wash and we can't wash garments in a lavandería so we went! WE washed everything and now it smells a lot better! haha but a dang cat got into our house..... we were thinking maybe it got in through one of the windows that was open but we don't understand how it got into our cement house that is tall and there is nothing for a cat to get down to ground level from the roof but yes it was a fun week! 

A real dryer!  It's been months!

   So in summary for all of those who think I write too much... our Christian investigators are trying to baptize us, a cat sprayed on all of our stuff in the house, and Fransico Javier Casteneda Hernadez got baptized! 

  Also today we went to a mercado because we both wanted sweatshirts that are less expensive and hna woodard wanted a mexican dress! We went with hna chavez and Fuque and hno de la Peña from Balbuena drove us so that was fun he drove us past cool stuff in the mish i had never seen! It was fun and we are tired and we are pumped to work and find more people this week! 

CV Sisters....you need to clean your lint traps!

Waiting for our dryer to finish!

 All is well here in Martin Carrera and we are happy, exhausted and working hard! I love you all and oh Chris the mini-mish, that is sick! You should bring your fake comp a present because that is the best to get free stuff from members... you guys can change ties or something that seems to be the thing with elders and take him some of moms cookies or something! Have fun livin the mish life for a weekend and hey take pics and send them to me!!!!!!!!!! Also Mom I am proud of you, you are a champ for taking ice skating class and the trick to spinning is to spot on object while you spin and whip your head around to try to spot the object at all times! Well that's what it is like in dance anyways idk about ice skating!  I gotta go but love you all and have a good week and keep on being happy living the gospel... la verdad its the only way to truly be happy! Love you all adios!

 Hermanita Heywood

He is coming...in one week!

Our District

View of a cool church from our outing in the city.