Taking time to go back to Tetela

Hey everyone!!!!!!!

This week was really fun. It's been a really tough transfer for us. We're pretty much watching as everything disintegrates and falls through our hands. Everything is just decaying hard. Every day we have less and less people to teach. Every day less and less people are progressing. But we're really, really happy. We're working super hard, and we're analyzing and reanalyzing what's going wrong, we're trying so hard to turn things around, and it's been like a personal purification process. We've been able to iron out all of our little problems.

It's been such an introspective week for me. I've spent so much time meditating and reflecting on what I need to change to become more obedient, more worthy, to work hard, to be a highly effective missionary, to improve my teaching, and so much more. It's been so progressive, and I've been so better off for it. I'm also learning so much about patience.

Yesterday, we got to spend time back in Tetela, one of my beloved old areas. Elder Lopez was there for two transfers, and now that he's headed home, he has permission to visit his ex areas on p-day. So we got to go and visit, and being his comp, I got to go too, and see my converts, the members of the branch, and everything. It was so incredible. So I attached some photos from our trip up to Tetela. I also got to see my trainer, who is the zone leader right now in Cuautla. So much fun.

This next week is the last week of transfers, and then we'll be starting off again. It's going to be a great last week. We're giving it our all, and we're working hard to enjoy it too, and make it memorable for Elder Lopez.

I hope you guys enjoy all the photos! I made sure to take a bunch, because I haven't sent too many.

Well that's all for this week! 

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long

Another week in chalco

Hey everyone!!!!

First of all, thanks for taking the time to read my emails! This week was really fun. We worked really hard, and things didn't really come out as planned. We have an investigator who was progressing a ton, and was going to get baptized this week, but that fell through. A lot of other things fell through. But it was really cool because a lot of really good investigators came to church yesterday, including a really great old investigator who should be getting baptized very soon.

I don't really have any funny stories from this week. But yesterday and today I got to do divisions with an elder from my ward (there are two companionships in my ward) and it was really fun. My comp is off visiting some of his converts before he heads home, so we are in divisions so we can still go to our lessons.

Well next week should be more fun, I hope to have some more stories to tell!!!!

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long

My Week

Hey everyone!!!!!

I get tired of saying its going to be a brief letter, because now my brief letters are the norm hahahaha. So it's going to be a normal letter.

It was a fairly difficult week. Our two investigators that were going to be baptized this week moved to Mexico City, outside of the limits of my mission. Really really sad. That was a crushing blow. The rest of our investigators didn't come to church. It was somewhat of an implosion in the area, and it's been really rough-going trying to build everything back up. But I'm really happy, and yesterday, we found a part-member family that wants to get to church again, and they have several members of the family who aren't members of the church, which is really exciting.

But we worked really hard, and we had an edifying week.

A funny story was that on Saturday we spent time helping out one of the wards of our building mow the lawn of the chapel. It was really fun, and afterwards, we were walking home to get showered and ready for the day, when my comp wanted to buy some strawberries really quickly. We walked into the store, and the shopkeeper told us that 1 kilo was 30 pesos, but some of the strawberries had gone bad and he was willing to sell us the entire stock of 3 kilos for 25 pesos. It was crazy cheap, and now we have a ton of strawberries in the house, that I eat every morning with my oatmeal.

Another story, there is a member who has a steakhouse, and he gives missionaries big discounts. We typically eat with members of the church, but one day, the family couldn't host us in their house, so they gave us money to go eat. So we went to the steakhouse and the brother who works there gave us some huge discounts on steak. It was so good I had to take a photo!

Oh, I also cut my hair and changed my hairstyle... I'm still not fond of short hair, but it is what it is, and I like the way I cut it... I feel like a professional soccer player.

That was pretty much all my week. Let's hope it goes better in this one!!!!

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long

Another week in books

Hey everybody!!!!!

I had one of the most interesting weeks of my mission so far. Monday night, or more like Tuesday in the morning, I got hit by a really bad fever. I was crazy sick for a few days with fever, body ache, shivering, hotness/coldness and everything that comes along from a gnarly fever. I had to go to the meetings and give my presentations with the fever, which kind of sucked but was fun. Wednesday, I was in a meeting literally the entire day. We didn't finish until the evening, and we were all the way in Cuautla, Morelos. We had to head on back to Chalco, and we didn't get back to our area until like 7pm. But I found a ton of old mission friends in the meeting, like my trainer, Elder Child, and a bunch of other guys. It was really fun.

Yesterday, we had a really great lesson with a family that decided to get married and accepted baptism. That was fantastic. It was one of the best lessons I've had as a missionary.

I realized I never really talked about the earthquake... it was really weird. It was the strangest sensation. It was like trying to stand up on a boat in really rough water. Everything was shaking so violently that we had to sit down to avoid getting injured. When we first started to feel it, we evacuated our house really fast. We were in the middle of our street when it really started, away from danger, in a really interesting area to just witness everything. One of the strangest experiences of my life.

Anyways, that's all for this week. My health is at 100 now, and we're having lots of success in our area. We're really busy, and really happy.

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long

Week down with lots of surprises

Hey everyone!

Sorry about not writing very much last week, I hope you can all accept my decision, and forgive me for not sending much.

This week I have a couple of photos to send, but not a lot, and I still don't have photos of my new comp, what my area looks like, or my church, but I'll try to get some good photos this week.

This last week I was crazy busy. It was the busiest week of all my mission. I was working in the mission office for three straight mornings, only working afternoons in my area, and just grinding hard. We found some great new people to teach, and had some awesome lessons, and we now have some investigators who shold be getting baptized in the next couple of weeks.

Having general conference was a real pleasure. It was amazing just having time to sit down and listen, and receive revelation. I particularly enjoyed the talk from Elder Anderson, hearing the lines that he took from Elder Hales's talk that he never gave. It made me really sad, but at the same time, he made some absolutely fantastic points about faith. I also really enjoyed Brother Callister's talk about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Absolutely fascinating.

I really like my new comp. His name is Elder Lopez, and he's from Chiapas. He's a really great guy, really intelligent, teaches well, and we get along super great. This is his last transfer, he goes home in less than 5 weeks, so it's going to be really fun. We're trying really hard to make these last weeks memorable, with some crazy hard work.

Tomorrow I have to give a short training in the district meeting, which shouldn't be that hard or complicated, but on Wednesday, I have to give an extensive training to the leaders of the mission, which has me stressed out. I also have another important meeting on Wednesday that should be interesting. All in all, this week is going to be even busier than the last.

I'm doing great. I attached some photos of me with my ex-comp, Elder Hernandez, and pancake breakfast that I made for him last p-day, and an awesome sandwich that i ate for lunch a few days ago that was worth a photo hahahahahahaha.

I love you guys a lot. My love goes out to my older sister Kate who is getting married this week. Kate, I wish I could be there for the wedding, but just know that I love you and I'm supporting you from down here. Send my best wishes to Cody.

Love,

Elder William Jacob Long