I know that this is His work!

It was a great week here in Mexico. I learned a lot this week about a lot of stuff and although my body is a little tired my heart and my spirit are still working at 100%.  Let me know how everything goes with Uncle Dales surgery.  He is in my prayers.

That is pretty cool that you are all getting ready with your homecoming stuff.  That brings back a lot of fun memories for me.  There is nothing like fall time in Utah.  You'll have to send me pics of all the fun stuff that's going on right now.

I got your package, what a surprise, I didn't even know you sent one!  Thanks a ton, I love the cereal and the soft cookies!!  My companion was super excited too because we don't ever eat soft cookies down here.

This week I went on intercambios with Elder Padilla from the Yucatan.  He can talk Maya.  He taught me some phrases that I can use with my Bishop and his wife because they are Mayan.... like "vash cow wa li sukum" translation: Whats up brother?  and Kik, ta ki hana wi hen.   Translation:  Sister, I am hungry, feed me please!!  These have proven to be very useful with the family of the bishop ha ha.

I also had an awesome experience this week when I went on intercamibos in Oriente, which is on the other side of Quetzal.  I knew that the sister of a person we are going to baptize in October (Elizabeth and Bryon) lives there in Oriente, but I didn't know where so I just forgot about it.  Then during the day when we were working there,  an appointment fell through so I felt I should knock a door, and you will never guessed who opened it,  Sofia the sister of Elizabeth.  She recognized me from meeting with her sister and said she wanted to talk to us because everyone she knew "is" or "is becoming" Mormon, so she wanted to know a little bit about us.  We put a baptismal date  for October and she is super excited.  I know that the Lord guides us to the people who are ready.

Sometimes with all this hectic running around doing intercambios helping the elders I am lost, and I feel like I don't know what I should do, and I have seen that if I say a quick prayer and turn to the scriptures I find my answer.  One time this week I opened up an old Liahona magazine and I found the same scripture five times in the magazine.  I know that the Lord talks to us through His scriptures and through His spirit and that this is His work.  I am extremely blessed to have the opportunity to serve.

The mission president is cool if you guys want to come pick me up, if not, its all good too.  Its not that dangerous as long as we are indoors by nine.

Joe decided to do some water coloring and painted the first vision.  He is really proud of it.

I love you all and hope you have an awesome week,

Con Muchisimo Amor,

Elder Fuell

A week full of exchanges (pics!!!)

Hola,

It has been a great week here in Mexico.  A lot has been going on and we have been super busy.  Since the mission president said that we need to do intercambios(missionary exchanges) 3 times a week, it has been super hectic, almost every night I am sleeping on the floor of someones house, but it is really fun and I am having a blast.

I am so glad to hear that Kate got a job and has finally gets to sink into a routine.  That job sounds awesome for her.  I know she will do great.

So the first intercambio we went on this week was with Elder Frazier.  This was cool because he is a new missionary from the U.S..  In all my time here I have never talked with a new missionary from the U.S.

They always go to the other side of the mission.  Maybe that's why I still feel like I don't have a lot of time in the mission.  It was really fun.  It made me think back to when I was a new missionary.  But he did awesome, we taught some great lessons, and his Spanish is coming along really well.

The other intercamibo I went on was with the Elders of the Iztapalapa ward.  I loved working there.  The area was twice the size of my first area and it was full of people.  I had a blast because we were finding and teaching people all day long.  I love getting to work with the other Elders and with their wards. When we were in Iztapalapa that day we focused a lot on working with members and did everything we could to get their support.  It was a little hard because the missionary's weren't working with the members before,but I hope to see some real progress form that area.

The other intercambio was with the assistants, that was a lot of fun. Usually I go with Elder Bodine.  We are pretty good friends but this time I went with Elder Black and it was really cool because I had never worked with him before.  We had some great lessons here in the area and I don't know how we made it to the district meetings because we left 40 minuets late but somehow the Lord got us through all the traffic.

We are teaching a bunch of training sessions too so between the two training sessions we had this week and all the intercambios, we have really learned to organize our time . . .  or we are learning to organize our time.

But even with all the craziness that is going on we still have time to see many miracles here in Consititution.  Brenda Alakala one of our investigators is going to get baptized.  She is one of the best examples to me of repentance which I believe is one of the greatest miracles of all.  Even though she hasn't been able to get baptized for the last couple weeks she does not give up hope and she knows what is important in her life.

That's just about it, keep me posted on Uncle Dales surgery.  I am glad to hear you are all doing well. have a great week.

Con Muchisimo Amor,

Elder Joe Fuell

Joe and his companion Elder Brito on their day off dressing like Vaqueros

Goofing off on their day off-Elder Fuell and Elder Brito

Cooking Lobster

Lobster

Cooking Lobster

Joe and Elder Rios fixing their shower

Unwinding after a long day

Got it!!!

Eating breakfast in our apartment...

I am having the time of my life!!! (Pictures)

Hola,

It has been a great week here in Mexico.

I am glad to hear that you are all doing well and that you are receiving so many awesome blessings.  I am having the time of my life, working as hard as I can and loving the work.

Things have been going great with me and Elder Stauffer.  He is from Utah Valley, and is cool.  We have been working really well together. Everyone knows us around here as the "two white guys".  I don't care what the call us, I am just glad that they are talking about us, which opens them up to receive the gospel.

This week we had a scare.  We walked out of a lesson and the streets where empty and all the business's where closed.  It was really weird,  because in my 16 months here I have never seen Iztapalapa without people.  Then  President called us and told us to get in our house and call all the missionaries and tell them to do the same.  So we where in our house all day.  I couldn't relax because some elders wouldn't answer their phones.  In the end all was well it was just a scare of rumors that where being passed around in the media.   So everything is fine and will be fine.  There was really no reason to worry but it was an interesting experience.  

Because of that experience for two or three days we could only go to certain appointments and couldn't contact people, but this was a great opportunity to work with the ward in missionary work.  Now the ward is super excited and we have plans to bring over 50 non members to general conference between our ward and the other ward in our building.

Everything is super great.  I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Con Muchismo amor,

Elder Joe Fuell

Joe's District Teaching at a booth

Joe Teaching

Taking pictures

Getting a bite to eat

Hanging with the other Elders

Taking pictures before baptism

Elder Fuell with Elder Rios(glasses) and other missionaries

Baptism

On the way home after a long, long day!!! 

Lessons of life!!!

Hola,
It has been a great but busy week here in Mexico.
Elder Rios and I have been up to our ears in work. . .  but I guess that is a good thing ha ha.  We were both a little bummed to here that he has changes and is going to go to the zone Contreras, which is really far away with Elder Hubbard.  My new companion is Elder Stauffer, I know him a little bit but just in passing.  I hope he is ready to work because we are booked for almost the next two weeks!


Elder Fuell with some Elders in the Zone



When I look back at this week it seems like most of the time we where stopped in traffic, blah! We took advantage of the opportunity to contact people on the bus but they were all grumpy because of the traffic.  We did get some pretty funny responses, but a lot of people listened to us because they had nothing better to do and we got to referrals.

Oh!  This morning I found a taratula (big spider) in the kitchen, it was a baby, but it was still huge, but I know if there is a baby the mama is somewhere close.  I still haven't found anything but I will let you know if anything happens,  If I don't write next week you´ll know that the spider ate me :(  ja jaja

Elder Rios and I are always the ones teaching the lessons but sometimes we come out of the lesson realizing we were the ones being taught.  Theses are what we call lessons of life.  This week we found a member who had been in the hospital in a coma,  she needed a blood transfusion and sent her brother who was a non member to a church to ask for the blood.  No one offered any and no one went to visit her in the hospital and no one had given her a blessing.  It broke our hearts to see how this sister was suffering.  We gave her a blessing and talked to some members who went and visited her.

I learned a lot of things from this experience but more than anything else I learned that there is always someone who needs our help.  The Savior was always helping everyone and we need to follow his example and do the same.  I am glad to hear that you are all doing good and I hope that you have a great labor day.

Con Muchismo Amor,

Elder Joe Fuell