300 Pesos, Guerro

Alright I’m low on time and motivation, so I’ll do my best at a relatively speedy delivery. Hope everone is doing so well and that you all had a great week! Man, we had a great week here with lots of fun experiences, so I’ll jump right in with everyones favorite section…

The Food Review

– A member thought it was an awesome idea (it was) to buy us a “traditional American lunch” from an Oxxo, the big gas station store brand. I got a ham and cheese sandwich, red cola, and poptarts, which we enjoyed while watching Book of Mormon videos in the church. 12/10 meal, pictures attatched

– Our aparment complex cleaning lady, Iris, is literally the greatest and took us to get tacos. I won’t say who is at fault, but the tacos fell right onto the floor as the guy behind the counter was handing them to me. The cleaning lady couldn’t stop laughing, and the tacos were so good. 7/10 for the embarrassment, 15/10 for the taste. Overall we will call it a 10, went back and got them again.

– We bought some potato wedges from Walmart, and they looked delicous, smelled delicous while we were cooking them, and tasted like Styrofoam. Kind of a bummer, 5/10

Anywho, enough of that and onto some more exciting stuff.

️ Weekly Highlights

This was actually a pretty fun week, we had a lot of fun and I spent a long time laughing. But first of all this week was…

– Stake Conference! We had a bunch of youth from our ward give little talks and they all did a great job! There was a little primary choir that did some musical numbers and all the hymns and such, they were so adorable and it was really funny because the microphone would pick up one little kid who kept saying “can we go yet?” Or “did we finish?”, everyone loved it! The stake president gave a super good message about being lifelong disciples and it was just a great time.

– We have this college kid that we are teaching, and the other day he asked us if he could be baptized so he could be a missionary too! So of course, we were like heck yes and he just has the best life goals and attitude about the gospel, he’s such a cool guy. Pray that Carlos keeps on keeping on for his baptism this Sunday!

– My companion has one of those little sticky gooey animal rubber toy things that he always throws at the cieling above my desk so it falls on my head at random moments. He calls it Poog and its pretty awesome. Part of him started to rip, so we cut him up and refilled him with water. We sewed him together and glued him back up, and I’m actually really sad to announce that he didn’t quite make it through the surgery. First re-toss at the roof and he kind of exploded. Poor fella. Luckily, we bought a new, capybara edition today! And he looks really sticky.

– We were walking around contacting in this big old park next to Bellas Artes, and there was a really talented couple of dudes playing songs live. They played Creep, Sweet Child O’ Mine, and Yellow Ledbetter all in english, and it was one of the coolest things ever. They played so well, in tune and on time, it was just like genuinely impressive. It was very reminiscent of a live Jared West wedding performance. That made me happy!

– My companion has apparently been playing a tranfer-long prank on me, and he just barely filled me in on it. Thank goodness, because I was starting to go nuts. I would tell you what it was, but I’m definitely going to be using it on future companions and my Dad…so I gotta keep it a secret. The other two Cuauhtémoc Elders are going to love it! Such a good idea…definitely stealing it.

– Elder Marx has monopoly deal, and we’ve started playing it during our free hour every night. It’s eithe rmt favorite game or my least favorite, because either way one person just like crushes the other. So much better than regular monopoly.

– Alright, my favorite story of the week. We consistently walk through Plaza Garibaldi (a big touristy plaza where tons of mariachis just kind of compete for attention), and I’ve warned Elder Marx a couple times that we don’t really talk to the mariachis, because they kind of just see us as walking money. Anywho, one night we passed by a group of them heading towards an apartment complex where we were going to go knock doors. One of the dudes from this mariachi band runs over to Elder Marx, and says “hey hey guerro! Say ‘aye aye aye!’”, and so Elder Marx, who thought this was hilarious, yells, “aye aye aye!” The guy claps his hands, and all the sudden the whole mariachi band kind of appears around us in a circle and bursts into like this classic Mexican mariachi song I’ve heard a billion times but don’t remember the name. The guy tried to dance with me and was trying to get me all hyped up, which I was not loving, but Elder Marx was thrilled. They gave us a nice 30 second snippet of this song, then the guy goes back up to Elder Marx and said essentially “okay white boy, 300 pesos” and he was just like HAH! But the guy was serious, and grabbed his arm as Compa Marx tried to walk away. They got into a little bit of a heated argument, something like “300 pesos guerro” and “listen! I don’t even have 300 pesos! I got 20! You didn’t say anything about a song or paying or anything, you just started playing” and the guy was just like “well that stinks, give me your 300 pesos, i know you have it” (which we didn’t). Anyways, I thought that it was pretty ridiculous they wanted 10 pesos per 1 second of music, so I stepped in, at which point they lowered it to 200 pesos. I mean, come ON! At this point, a crowd was starting to form around us (mostly a couple drunk Costa Ricans and an old man) and they were all kind of yelling at the mariachi man, but bro was insistent. I swear, Elder Marx and mariachi bro were about to go to a fist fight, the guy was like aggressive. Eventually, a big mob boss looking dude comes up, takes Elder Marx’s 20 pesos, takes his own 50 pesos from his wallet, and says “hey I heard your song, it was short and not very good, leave these two alone and take the money or leave it.” He took the money, that guy was a legend! Absolutely saved us, turns out hes from Veracruz and knows missionaries. May the Lord bless that man. That was kind of just that, I walked away dying laughing and Elder Marx was just ticked. It was awesome

Anyways, that about wraps up the majority of the eventful things that happened this week, hopefully someone enjoyed! Onto my favorite part…

Spiritual Thoughts

As part of his talk on Sunday in Stake Conference, President Ramirez shared a scripture that was the theme for the conference. He even gave us all pens with the scripture reference on it! I love this scripture so much and I think it refers perfectly to missionary work, and especially trying to be lifelong disciples of Jesus! Here it is, Jesus Himself speaking in 3rd Nephi 13: 33

I love that scripture so much. I very liekly have shared it recently, but I think that is such an important thing to remember. Our Father in Heaven knows the things we need, and as we seek His will and do the things that will get us back to Him, He will bless us with the things that we need.

And then I read one of my favorite scriptures this week in 2nd Nephi, where Nephi explains the importance of the Doctrine of Christ. If you don’t remember, the Doctrine of Christ is 5 things:

Faith (something we need to strengthen and grow daily, through the scriptures, prayer, service, sharing the gospel, etc)

Repentance (also a daily thing, because we all make mistakes every day. This changes our desires and turns us closer to Christ, through Him we can recieve forgiveness!)

Baptism (for those of us who are already baptized, this is about keeping thr covenant to be a representative of Jesus Christ in every moment, and renewing that covenant each Sunday when we take the Sacrament. Read Mosiah 18: 7-10 if you want more specifics)

The Gift of the Holy Ghost (who is a guide for us in every moment and decision, as we seek to live worthily of His presence. He is always there to help, our Heavenly Father hasn’t left us alone.)

And, Enduring to the End. (That is simply doing each of those 4 other things, every day, for the rest of our lives. That is how we become disciples of Christ.)

Now, as Nephi said… (2nd Nephi 31: 20)

I love that. So, I invite you each this week to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ. Seek first the kingdom of God!! He will add everything else you need. Endure to the end, and review and think of the covenants you have made. The blessings are there waiting!

Alright, that seemed long enough for this week. Don’t forget how much I love you, and that your Heavenly Father loves you!! He is watching down on you, helping as you go along. I hope you all have another fantastic week, thanks for reading, and keep up the good work out there!! I miss you all so much, but I love ya even more!

Peace out, I love you!

-Elder Crockett

Say Cheese!