Nelson’s Baptism, and About Chinampas

July 23rd

 


It’s been a dope week. We found a girl who has been baptized in a different state and moved here 4 years ago and lost contact with the church. Her kid is 9 years old and his way interested in the church. We taught them and it was awesome. Jose (the kid) loved the story of Joseph Smith. We had a total of nine lessons with new investigators and we contacted another 50 people. Nelson got baptized on Saturday July 21st and I baptized him. The problem was that he also wanted me to confirm him. This was the first confirmation that I’ve given. I was a little nervous. My knees were shaking pretty good but I confirmed him and it was awesome.

I also had to give a talk that I was advised about 30 minutes before sacrament meeting. It was on D&C 4:5, just one verse. But it went well and I liked it. We also went on exchanges on Thursday. I went with my old companion, Elder De la Rosa. But we got along really well again and we are homies. De La Rosa and me were eating Little Caesar’s and a kid came to us and tried selling us a little bag of peanuts. I didn’t see him but Elder De La Rosa did and he did something I will never forget. He said, “Nah, I don’t want any peanuts, but do you want to eat with us?” Then he invited this kid to eat some pizza with us. He sat down and ate. I’m pretty sure it was the first time he had eaten Pizza in his life, just by the way he ate it. He talked with us and told us he’s 10 years old.

All right, I got a bit of time so I can explain and describe my new area. I’m in the Chinampas Branch in the Culhuacan Stake. On a mission map, we are the furthest bottom right. Our area is about 1/6 of the entire Mission. It’s massive. We have five main pueblos are at the base of the mountains. They are: Nativitas, Santa Cruz, San Gregorio, San Luis, and Tulyehualco. Up in the mountains there are like 30-ish small towns. The bigger ones are San Pedro, San Bartolome, Las Pinitas, and El Capulin. it is the greatest area in the city. Our area is partly in Delagacion Xochimilco, Tlahuac, and Milpor Alta. We also have a few kilometers of the Estado de Mexico. The area is super Catholic. It’s the most Catholic in our mission. We have statues of different Virgins on every corner: Virgen Maria, Guadalupe, Rosario. Everyone is super nice and super poor. Most of Chinampas is dirt roads and the roads all suck. It rains nearly daily here and it just floods every street. There’s so much mud everywhere. The micro- bus drivers here all hate each other so they race super fast trying to get more people. The area is called Chinampas because the way people farm here is with things called Chinampas. Chinampas are rivers that have crops growing on both sides. They use giant canoes to get around their farms. There’s also a dank place called Embarcaderos. They go on these canoes that are called trajineras and drink and party. We have 500 members in our Branch and only 70 are active.

What Chinampas is supposed to have looked like.
What Chinampas actually looks like.

July 30

This week’s been a dope time!!! I met a sweet family that we found that has a kid that can’t walk or talk or even feed himself. They insert food in a tube directly to his stomach. When we talked about the resurrection and read the scripture in Alma 40:23, the mom started crying and was so happy that her son would one day receive a perfected body. We told her that he has already achieved eternal life and all that she needs to do is follow Christ and they could be together in the kingdom of God for ever. It was an amazing lesson!!!

I have been studying in Book of Mormon, in Jacob about the Vineyard. Jacob was quoting from a Mediterranean prophet named Zenos. In the Mediterranean, there are so many olive trees and that the way the vineyard in Jacob is described perfectly describes what we know about proper olive tree grooming. However, olive trees don’t grow in New York or in that part of the US, so Joseph Smith would have had no idea how to tend an olive grove from his own personal experience as he translated that part in Jacob. Just something I learned this week. Also I am studying in D&C and the New Testament cuz I want finish both before Christmas.

I have also found that if I am focused on the proper objective, I will be happy and have success. In D&C 4:5, it says in order to be qualified for the work, we need to have an eye single to the glory of God, which, in the Spanish translation, means we need to look only to the glory of God. I always thought that was a cool scripture but now I studied a bit harder and I remembered the well-known scripture, Moses 1:39, which tells us that God’s work and his glory is the salvation of mankind. Sooo, we just need to focus on the path to eternal life for those around us. I have seen this work miracles in our area!

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooove this work and am more happy than I’ve ever been before. My Spanish is good, and my English is getting worse. Yeet!

We climbed a huge mountain just to get to one new investigator that we found close to home. After the climb up, we found out that she’s got a family of 15! And then we contacted 2 other giant families and we now have a lot of work up there!!!! Looks like we’ll be climbing that hill quite a bit.

We are finding people left and right here; we made another 40 contacts this week which puts us at 120 contacts in 3 weeks!!! We are talking with everyone!!!! and the members give us references!!!!! (That reminds me, you guys need to give more references to your missionaries!!!!)

I am in love with this work and these people (and this food). It’s the best 2 years for sure. Sorry you didn’t get to go to such a dope mission like mine, Dad 🙁

Love you so much,

Elder Turner


August 6

We got a baptism coming up!!!!!! His name is Santiago. He’s the dad of a family that got baptized 4 years ago. He never wanted to. We showed up, taught him about eternal families and he immediately wanted to know how to achieve that. We explained in depth baptism and he accepted a baptism date. That was like 2 weeks ago. He had his interview this Sunday and he’s all ready!!! He’s so awesome.

We found a woman and taught el evangelio de Jesucristo: faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost and endure to the end. But we taught it with PURE scriptures. It was awesome. We felt the spirit so nice and she accepted to get baptized and told us she felt such a feeling of peace and joy throughout the lesson and especially when we invited her to baptism. AWESOME!!!!!

I love the chapters of Mosiah!!! King Benjamin is such a stud and I love how he wanted for everyone to be happy and he did all he could to help them; worked with them, led them, and most importantly, taught all he knew about the Gospel. IT’S A nice chapter!

I am having such a fun time here and can’t wait for the upcoming weeks!

I love u guys and I love this church!

Later skaters,

Elder Turner