Qué lo que cuates!
Sorry, I hit the send button by accident last time! Here’s the actual complete email. Anyways. Hi! Hope everyone is having a fantastic week up to this point, keep on having fun out there! Go enjoy some time in nature and don’t let it get sold off. If not for your sake, for mine please!
This week was a great week, I think the coldest one I’ve had yet in the mission (I don’t know why 60 degrees feels so much colder here) and lots of rain. The cloudy weather is one thousand times better than the UV of 13 so no complaints! Anyways…
✨️ Highlights
– Well I just kind of realized today that I’m almost at 11 months, which means I’m almost at a year, which means I’m almost home already. Time goes by too fast out here and I absolutely love missionary work! Trying to make the most of it out of the little time I got left!
– President and Sister Brady got here yesterday, new bosses of the mission are now in charge. We had a little Zoom call with them yesterday, and they seem so so fun! I can’t wait to meet them in person! I am going to miss President and Sister Burnham so much though, but I can’t wait to work with the Bradys!
– I was told that the delicious Mixiote tacos (sorry, misspelled last week) from my last email are actually made of rabbit, in case anyone wants to go skin some bunnies to make some tasty tacos. So so sorry rabbits, but you make some amazing tacos. Thank you Patricia for letting me in on the secret 🙌
– I’ve always heard from missionaries, and generally just the younger population of CDMX that chicharrón en salsa verde is like super nasty. I got fed a crud ton of said dish on Sunday, and while it was definitely not my favorite, the grossness is overhyped. It’s just kind of like eating cold, wet, bubbly fat.
– Alexis got baptized!! The dude is sooo cool, he’s been to church a ton before and loves institute! He was so excited and got baptized after just a week and a couple days of having met him, he is such a cool dude and so happy! He, and his family brought us all hot dogs and cake to celebrate his baptism, and it was so cool!! Congrats Alexis
– I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but chilangos have the most Jared West habit of all time. Have I ever mentioned that people eat hot dogs here out of the packaging, uncooked??? Maybe this is an American habit that I’m unaware of but seems to me on the equivalent level of biting String Cheese. Probably about the same consistency when chewing and similar temperatures. My companion buys hot dogs and eats them straight just while studying and I’m deeply disturbed because I’ve seen a lot of people doing this lately. Someone help!
– There is an awesome recent convert in the ward named Sansón and he is a super funny and out of pocket dude. Anyways, we go over to visit him and tried to convince his mom, Consuelo, to come to church with us. This lady is super ancient and everything she says is a yell because she’d deaf, she is awesome! Anyways, she comes out guns blazing with “verdad que esta hacerme cosquillas? Dile a Sansón” and I was like what the heck does that mean, turns out this lady is convinced it is in contrary to the 10 commandments to tickle the feet of your old mom while she sleeps. Let’s go Sansón!! She was complaining that she couldn’t walk anymore because of all the tickles and that Sansón never stops tickling her feet so she has trauma and can’t sleep well. I couldn’t help but bust up laughing, Consuelo doesn’t want to come to church because we don’t believe tickles are against the commandments. Doggone it!
– We had a FaceTime lesson with this dude named Braulio who is probably one of the happiest and funniest people I have met, he is absolutely stoked for his baptism this weekend! He’s been to the church a bunch before but never talked to missionaries! Keep Braulio in your prayers for this weekend!
Well, those are about all the stories I got for this week, it was a good week and we had a lot of success! I love being a missionary so much and have found so much joy in daily personal conversion, repentance, study, and preservance. The Doctrine of Christ changes lives!!
📖 On That Semi-Related Note…
This week I was reading in the Book of Mormon and hopping a bit around Doctrine and Covenants and was having such a good time finding scriptures that spoke to me! Before anything else, I promise the Lord has answers to prayers waiting for you in the scriptures!
I read a lot about “missionary work”, or more accurately, sharing the Gospel, and I love what the Mosiah has to say about the sons of Mosiah who go out to preach the gospel! Mosaih 27: 36 + 37
“And thus they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer.
And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth.”
Man I think that is so cool! After having persecuted the Church, they were converted into not only faithful members but people that testified and taught and published peace. I think that speaks very well to our responsibility as disciples of Christ to learn and share!
The Lord doesn’t just make us better people, He asks us to be tools to make other people’s lives better too! When we trust in Him and choose His will, even though we are pretty dang lousy servants to choose to declare the perfect gospel sometimes, He will use us, with our faults and mistakes and wounds, and make us tools in proclaiming the peace that He offers us!
Now, my Dad sent me a couple verses from Doctrine and Covenants that I really liked, and I thought I’d put those here too in case someone needs to hear them like I did. Section 60, verses 7 + 13:
“And in this place let them lift up their voice and declare my word with loud voices, without wrath or doubting, lifting up holy hands upon them. For I am able to make you holy, and your sins are forgiven you.
Behold, they have been sent to preach my gospel among the congregations of the wicked; wherefore, I give unto them a commandment, thus: Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known.”
There you go! That testifies that the Lord knows our sins, and chooses us anyways to serve His children! He makes us holy when we do His will, and expects us to go help and do the same.
I love the second underlined part there too, don’t idle away your time. That’s not just talking about a mission, this is life!! We are here to grow, learn, enjoy, find joy, help, lift, serve, and love! Thus ain’t the time to sit around on the couch and twidle your thumbs, it’s time to get to work!
That was directed for me not for y’all, but even so, go out there and enjoy life! Make the most of your situation and make joy something personal and internal, not so focused on whatever crap may surround you. The world is a hard place, life is a challenge, but as Christ said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Well, I love you all so dang much, and I hope you have a great week! Remember that the Lord can make you Holy and wants you to share the good news of the gospel with everyone!
Sorry for the double email, oops! Buttons are hard sometimes. I miss you all so much, I love you all too, you are all in my prayers, and go make it a great week out there!
Take care, talk soon, love ya!
– Elder Crockett 🫶
