Week 36 (5/23/2016)

Hello again everyone!

This week was the last week of the change and I think I can say it was the best one yet. We got our changes this morning and I'm staying in this area for another change at least. I'm really happy that I can stay here and hopefully baptize some of the families we found these last two weeks. Also, Elder Bauer is my favorite companion so far so staying with him is really nice.

I forgot to mention last week but we ate with the missionary couple that is here in our mission on Monday. Elder Bauer ate with them on exchanges a few weeks ago and the other day he jokingly asked the sister when we would eat with them again so they invited us to eat for p-day. Two other companionship's were there with us. We're going to make no bake cookies to say thanks for the lunch.

On Tuesday the Elder Lugo, the senior elder that fed us on Monday, came to work with us. We had several really powerful lessons with him. He also has a tablet so we were able to show videos to the investigators. Elder Lugo is a really good teacher and he's never timid so it was fun to work with him.

On Thursday a dog tried to attack me. We were walking along and offered to help some people move some furniture into their truck. They said no and their dog, chained to a tree, started to bark at us. So, we started to walk away and then we heard something happen with the chain then the dog came running around the other side of the truck. Elder Bauer just kind of stood there and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to hit the dog with it's owners right there so I just pushed my bag into it's face and started backing up. It worked pretty well because the dog couldn't get past my bag and the owners came and grabbed it within a few seconds. It was kind of scary but honestly not so bad. The best part was that my companion was just laughing at me the whole time.

On Sunday we ordained Alejandro, Jose, and Pedro to the Aaronic priesthood. I'm really happy that they all have the desire to move forward and grow as members. Alejandro was especially excited. He really wants the Melchizedek priesthood so he can give blessings to his wife and others. He's a really good convert.

We also went to Arteaga, a small city outside of Saltillo, on Sunday. There were a bunch of people there in a big market thing. We had a contacting activity where we stood up on stools and testified of the Book of Mormon. It was really cool but honestly really scary. Each of us got up and testified for about a minute. I was pretty loud and felt pretty good when I started up but then I had to get down after a minute because my legs were shaking.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when we werre getting the baptismal font ready for Alejandro we had to use buckets to empty it. The pump wasn't working right so we had to dump the water into the sinks in the bathroom. It took a while to empty but we got it ready in time.

Here are the birds! 

Carolina Wren -Saltapared de Carolina

White-tailed Kite -Milano Coliblanco

Well, that's all for this week. Thanks for everything!

¡Les extraño y les quiero!

-Elder Steiner

Week 35 (5/16/2016)

Hi everyone!

This week was good. I have a feeling that the weeks are going to keep being good. The mission is a lot easier in month 9 than month 2. Haha!

On Tuesday we had our zone conference and the zone leaders trained us. Like I said we're focusing more on the Book of Mormon so they set up a jeopardy game with BoM questions. It was pretty fun but it got a little intense at some points. Missionaries can get really competitive about doctrine.

Later that day during lunc Elder Bauer challenged me to eat some really spicy salsa. He said that for every spoonful I put in my food he would eat two without food. Basically, we had a really fun afternoon full of stomachaces.

Tuesday is mother's day here in Mexico so we went around with our ward mission leader and delivered roses to our investigators and some less active members. They really appreciated it and it was pretty fun. Our ward mission leader is a little old so driving is scary especially with how people here drive anyway...

On Thursday we went and visited one of our investigators. He said he was busy so he couldn't have a lesson then. We offered to help him and we ended up washing his dog. It was pretty fun except for trying to catch the wet dog after washing him. Haha!

On Fridays we have our meetings with the ward mission leader. His wife usually gives us something to eat afterward. I can't remember what she gave us but I do remember that Elder Bauer and I ate some bugs. She had some beetles that supposedly help with all sorts of health problems so Elder Bauer ate some. After that I was basically obligated to eat some. It was pretty weird. I can't remember the last time I willingly ate a bug.

On Saturday we baptized Alejandro! It was really awesome. He and his wife looked really happy. I'm so glad that I can help these people to follow the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the coolest thing in the world.

Here are the birds!

Swainson's Hawk -Aguililla de Swainson

Cave Swallow -Golondrina Pueblera

The spiritual thought for this week is from the hymn Ye Elders of Israel verse 2.

2. The harvest is great, and the lab'rers are few;

But if we're united, we all things can do.

We'll gather the wheat from the midst of the tares

And bring them from bondage, from sorrows and snares.

I was thinking specifically about this the other day while listening to this hymn. A lot of the time I feel like I'm wading through a field of tares and that there is too much corruption and apostasy for wheat to grow well but that just means I'm looking at the wrong thing. If I'm topo busy thinking about the apostasy and badness then I can't focus on looking for people that will accept the gospel. I'm here to help the people lost in the midst of the tares to come unto Christ and be free.

Thank you all for your love and support! I miss you and hope that you are all well.

-Elder Steiner

Week 34 (5/09/2016)

Hello everyone! Happy (late) Mother's day!

I hope you have all had a fantastic week because I know I have. It's been a little rainy this week which makes walking around all day a little harder but it's a lot better than the heat. The biggest downside to the rain is that it gets humid when the sun is out. This morning I felt like I was already drenched. I'm glad I'm in a desert so I'm not always dealing with humidity.

Last Monday we had a fun lesson with a family that we reactivated. Elder Bauer brought a bag of tootsie pops and made me do pushups so the family could get tootsie pops. It probably won't surprise most of you that after about 20 I was having a pretty hard time. I even had to do pushups when they didn't want the sucker. We taught about the Atonement and how Christ suffered so we could get free blessings. Also, how Christ suffered for us even if we don't accept the blessings so we may as well just accept it and get our blessings in stead of having our Brother suffer in vain.

Thursday was Cinco de Mayo. I bet a lot of you had parties in your Spanish classes or with your friends and whatnot. However, here in Mexico Cinco de Mayo is basically a regular day. I didn't know it was Cinco de Mayo until I had to write something in my agenda. America makes a way bigger deal out of it than Mexico.

On Friday we had a regular day of work but at one point we were walking along and an old man came by pushing an old lady in a bicycle cart thing. We immediately offered to help and we pushed them to a little health center. They weren't really interested in having a lesson but it was nice to help them out.

On Sunday I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting. Luckily I was actually warned a few days in advance instead of at the beginning of sacrament meeting. Haha! I also only had to give a short talk because the sister that spoke before went for about 25 minutes. I gave a little talk on missionary work and how it's everyone's responsibility. I think it went a lot better than my last talk. :)

Today we had a pretty relaxing pday. We played chess (I lost) and then risk (I won) and we got back from looking for souvenirs a little while ago. We also started reading the Book of Mormon over again as a mission. I'm going to do it all in Spanish this time.

We are going to baptize this Saturday! His name is Alejandro and his wife is a return missionary. He originally wanted to be baptized in June but he prayed about it and decided to be baptized this week! They want to get sealed in the temple so next year when they go they could invite me and I'd get to go to the temple during my mission!

Some other baptisms that we had lined up for this month because people keep making excuses about coming to church. Luckily we found a new family of three who are super excited so we might baptize them the 28th of May.

The spiritual thought this week comes from Elder Holland's talk from the October conference. "No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child."

I am extremely grateful that I can testify of the love of a mother. I don't know if I'll ever really understand how much my mother loves me but I can see quite a bit of evidence in all that she has done for me. I know mother's day was yesterday but there isn't a day that we shouldn't be grateful for our mothers and all they do for us. Thank you for everything, mom.

I didn't see any cool birds this week. Sorry...

Thanks for reading! I hope you're all well!

Les amo y les extraño.

-Elder Steiner

Week 33 (5/02/2016)

Hi everyone!

I hope that all of you have had a good week! I know that I have. It's been a little busy and unusually tiring but pretty fun and productive.

On Monday night Elder Bauer and I moved our mattresses up on to the roof and slept up there. It was a little windy but it felt really nice. All the houses here get really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter so being up one the roof felt nice at night.

On Tuesday I had exchanges with the other elders from our ward. Apparently their area is quite a bit bigger than ours so we had to walk a lot and mostly uphill. Our last lesson was the last house basically up on the mountain. Walking up there wasn't so bad and I got to see some cool birds but it was awfully far away so we didn't have any lessons right before or after. I also saw a bunch of jackrabbits up on the hill because it's a lot more deserty up there.

On Wednesday we had a normal day but for our last lesson we watched "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" with some investigators. We had popcorn and candy. It was the first time I had seen it in Spanish which was interesting, and I was happy to understand it all. It was a really spiritual lesson even though we basically just watched the movie. Afterward Elder Bauer and I testified of Joseph Smith and the Spirit was definitely present.

On Friday night we started exchanges with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Daines who will probably be the next assistant to president. It's always fun to work with the more experienced missionaries. They can always teach you something you need to know.

Today we played monopoly with the zone leaders. I did okay and got the orange monopoly (the best one) but I did a bad trade early on and it all came crashing down...

That's basically all the cool stuff that happened this week. I did also have a really cool Spirit guided contact to find a new investigator yesterday but it's a little hard to explain. Just know that it was cool.

Here are the birds!

Northern Mockingbird (Not a "Mockingjay" like all the Americans think. Those don't exist)

Cassin's Kingbird

Curve-billed Thrasher

Red-tailed Hawk (Go Utes!)

Scaled Quail

Bewick's Wren

Tamaulipas Crow

Sorry, no spiritual thought this week. I've been slacking a bit... It'll be good next week.

Well, thanks for reading! I hope that everything is going well for you all!

¡Les extraño y les amo!

-Elder Steiner

Week 32 (04/25/2016)

Hello everyone!

This week was pretty normal. We did have some pretty frustrating first lessons but everything is going really well.

On Monday we went to the mall to spend time with other elders looking at suits. For about two hours. I don't know if I mentioned that last week but it lasted a really long time. Elder Bauer and Elder Johnson were trying on what seemed like every suit.

It started getting a little stormy on Tuesday and it rained off and on until Saturday. The storm finished off on Saturday with a lot of rain within about 30 minutes. Right before it started raining really hard we decided to head home to get coats and umbrellas. I think the Spirit had a hand in telling us to plan lessons by our house at that time. Haha! The rain also made it so washing our clothes on Monday last until about  Friday because our clothes kept getting wet and we kept forgetting to bring them back in. To say the least, I'm really grateful for dryers.

On Friday we went over to have a lesson with one of our investigators but he was across the street painting the neighbor's house. We ended up helping them to paint and we set a time to come back and visit them. The family that lived there had lived in Canada for several years so we were speaking English with the kids to help them practice.

Here in Mexico there are these things called trompos. The kids here are playing with them a lot now because they are only around in April. Elder Bauer and I bought some and I have to say it is super hard to do anything with them. The kids around here can do all sorts of crazy tricks and I can barely get them to spin upright. We were playing with them in our house the other day but we decided to stop because the members that live below us didn't appreciate it. So, we decided to go up on the roof to try them out because there was no way that they could hear them from up there. Since I'm not very good at keeping the trompo under control I was worried that I would accidentally launch it off the roof. I commented this to Elder Bauer and then tired to spin my trompo again. Suddenly it went launching off the roof and bounced miraculously on a few walls to land on a neighboring roof. I considered retrieving it but then decided that was probably a bad idea. I promise I'm not a disobedient missionary. :)

These last few weeks we've been working with an investigator named Monica and her family. She is really excited about being baptized and her sister is also pretty excited too. She always reads the Book of Mormon or pamphlets but she is yet to come to church. That is a little difficult but I'm confident that she can be baptized next month along with her sister and mom if they come to church.

Here are the birds!

Peacock-Pavo Real (FOR REAL)

Turkey Vulture -Zopilote Cabecirrojo

Northern Parula -Parula Norteña

Cooper's Hawk -Gavilán de Cooper

Lesser Goldfinch -Dominico Dorsioscuro

This week's spiritual thought is from Matthew 5:13. 

 13 ¶Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

I like this scripture because we can talk a little bit about chemistry with it. When you mix dirt in with salt it loses it's preserving power and it's taste. So, sins are like the dirt and we lose our ability to come closer to God if we are corrupted with dirt. Normally it's really hard to get dirt to separate from salt but not if we use water and fire. First you dissolve the salt and filter the water then dissolve away the water with fire. The purifying power of baptism, water, and the Holy Ghost, fire, can return us to a state of purity and spiritual power. I'm so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we can truly be clean through the whole process.

Thanks for reading and writing to me! I'm grateful for all of you and your support!

Les amo y les extraño.

-Elder Steiner

Week 31 (4/18/206)

Hello everyone!

This was the first week of my sixth change! It was kind of a slow week in terms of lessons but I am having a lot of fun with my new companion. I said last week his name is Elder Bauer. He's from Idaho and his high school mascot was a potato. I thought that was kind of funny. :) He has 20 months on the mission so he's leaving in August, almost exactly a year before I go home.

This week was pretty normal. We were with Elder Johnson, our zone leader, on Monday because his companion got changed to be assistant. We taught all the Monday lessons as a trio which was pretty cool. I think I've spent an unusual amount of time specifically with leaders here in the mission because all my companions have been district leaders and we spend a lot of time with the zone leaders as well. 

Tuesday I was in the bus station for about half the day waiting for my companion. I got to know a few missionaries whom I hadn't seen before. We got hungry after a little bit so we went over to a little store and I found powder hot chocolate(!). I haven't seen it very many places here in Mexico so I bought it and saved it in the house.

On Sunday we only had one investigator in the church...That was kind of frustrating especially after about five people had said they would be there. It's okay, though. The investigator that came is named Cecelia and she's pretty close to baptism. We just need to get her "husband's" divorce finished up so they can get married and be baptized.

Every Sunday we take dats so we stopped by a members house to call the other elders. As we were sitting there the dughter in the family was progressively bringing in different farm animals. I took pictures with a rabbit and a chick and then Elder Bauer and I took a selfie with a chicken. That was pretty fun.

Here are the birds!

Brewer's Blackbird -Tordo de Brewer

Zone-tailed Hawk -Aguililla Aura

Turkey Vulture -Zopilote Cabecirrojo

Northern Rough-winged Swallow -Golondrina-aliserrada Norteña

The spiritual thought for this week is from 1 Nephi 20:10.

 10 For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.

This week we are going to start ponderizing scriptures each week. I chose this one sort of randomly but it happened to be really important for Elder Bauer. I basically just opened up the Bible to the topical guide and saw furnace. This scripture is really important to show how we are chose of God by how well we endure the challenges we face.

Thanks you all for your support! I am really happy to be here even though it's a little dirty and there are dogs everywhere. I know I'm in the right place and with the right companions.

Les extraño y amo!

-Elder Steiner

Week 30 (4/11/2016)

Hello everyone!

This was the last week of the change! This change has been fantastic and I've really learned a lot. I feel way more confident with Spanish than the past change and teaching is a lot easier now than the past changes as well. I'm really happy with the work I've done this change. This last week we found several really good people that could be baptized by the end of next change.

I'm staying here next change but Elder Hernandez is headed to Monclova. I'm a little sad that he's leaving but it's okay. I can say that I really learned a lot from him and I hope that I can start applying it more in my own teaching and as I work with my future companions. 

My next companion is named Elder Bauer, and my streak of being junior companion to district leaders continues this next change. I'm excited to see how we work together and what I can learn.

This Friday we had an activity in the church. It was a little difficult because the ward wasn't as involved in the planning as we wanted but it turned out really well. We even had 6 investigators there between us and the other missionaries! We focused the activity around how the members can help us with missionary work. We commited all of the members to do a small act of missionary work this week.

It's starting to get really hot here this month, and it's only going to get hotter during the summer. I'm glad that I'm here in Saltillo at least for now because it's higher up in the mountains and it doesn't get quite as hot. I'm starting to see how what Robert Whetten said about how hot it gets is very true. I hope I can survive at least through this first summer and then maybe the next will be a little easier. (Probably not...)

Here are the birds!

Chipping Sparrow -Gorrión Cejiblanco

Barn Swallow -Golondrina Ranchera

Bewick's Wren -Saltapared de Bewick

Common Nighthawk -Chotacabras Mayor

Cattle Egret -Garza Ganadera

White-tailed Kite -Milano Maromero

I forgot to look up a scripture for my spiritual thought this week but I have something I can relate to the birds. The last three birds in the list flew away almost immediatly after I saw them and I was really happy that I saw them before they left, especially the kite. I think that God gave me several tender mercies to see those birds. For most of you that might seem a little silly but I'm honestly grateful for all the (little) good things (and some of the bad things) that have happened here on the mission.

I'm really happy to be here as a missionary and I'm really grateful for all that you all do for me. Thanks to all those that write. I miss and love you!

-Elder Steiner