Breaking through as captain of the sappy sours!

This week was good and I actually got my district excited and they did a good chunk of work! It is killing me but thats ok.

Tuesday. Leaders meeting. We had a big discussion for 2 hours about how to be an effective leader. It was awesome. We need to push from the back not pull our districts up. We need to go whith them and push them through it. I realized that i really need to walk in the footsteps of my companionships that i am in charge of. Then we had a noche de hogar and we got called on last second to talk about missionarry work in the ward. Then we found this awesome family of 7 taht are all gonna get baptized but cant for 5 weeks. I kinda hope i am here still for that.

Wednesday. We had district meeteng. Teaching my chamacos how to do what they need to do to complete the normas of the mission. It is rough with my district. They arent very easily excited to work. But i tried the best i could and then we went and taught a ton, and then came back and all of the numbers that they read to me were awesome!!! I am thrilled! Captain of the sappy sours came through!!!  I went on cambios with Elder Bishoff. He is the new elder as of this transfer from california. He is awesome. He has fairly good spanish for his short amount of time in the mission. We went over to San Fransisco del Mar. It was good. I really helped them out over there. I got them 2 baptismal dates and got him really excited about working. He is a good kid and he is gonna be a great missionary.

Thursday. Got a call this morning that we needed to come back to ixhuatan because i needed to make an announcement for the movie night that we planned for the ward to bring a ton of péople. So we went over to pacos house because he is like the only one that has a computer. We went over and i downlodaed Reaper, and worked my magic. It was killer! I miss that stuff. Then we had to find the movie "charly" which i have never seen. And then we headed out to teach a bit more and then went back to the house, did call in reports and hit the sack.

Friday. We got up and headed out to go get some teaching done and then we got called to go put everything up. We ran quickly and gave 2 blessings and then had to go rent speakers for the event and then go get the projetor from the chapel and then headed over and set it all up and it was supposed to start at 5 but nobody was there until 6:30 so we started it then. And we showed the new video of Because of him. Its celestial cool! Go take a look at it! http://www.mormon.org/easter There it is. Just take a min during this holy week to think about what Jesus Christ means to you. What do you have because of him. We watched charly and it is one of the best movies that i have ever seen and i totally cried at the end. Im looking for a charly.

Saturday. Got up and had a satisfied saturday full of awesome teaching and swell lessons! I also got a bunch of people to read and pray! Gotta love that!

Sunday. We got up to try to bring 4 investigators to church but they made us late and so we missed sacrament and then to make it worse, President George was there, and to make it worse, right as we walked in, the branch president asked me to talk about easter and what the pascua means to me. I went up and talked about the miracles of Christ and how he preformed so amny miracles soely based on the fact that his will was entirely in line with that of the father. It made me think of how may miracles i could be preforming if my will was in line perfectly with that of my heavenly father. I am going to really try to do  that. 

Scripture of the week. 1 Nephi 19:9 Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act upon what you discover.

That what ive got this week!

Ve y conquistar,

Elder Runyan

Birfday and 6 Meses. Boom

What a fun week. It was wicked fast too. Ill try to give you what I remember.

Tuesday : Completed 6 Months! Holy cow. Cray. We went to the leaders meeting which i had to teach about contacting. It was a good lesson. I talkd about being prayerfully ready to find the elegidos. I dont know what that is in english. its like a step above chosen. Like the super chosen ones. It was swell. Then we did a bunch of practices. Then I talked about being a consecrated missionary. This is something that i am really working on, but it is suuuuper hard. Then we went and cleaned a field with machetes for 4 hours. its hot. Then we had our noche de hogar in the church and we brought the two people with us whose yard we cleaned but they snuck out during the opening prayer... POOP. That was pretty much it.

Wednesday : Our neighbor caught some cool bird and we woke up to him yelling for us to come see his bird... Anyway. Our lunch people forgot that we were going, so we didnt get lunch, and then we went out with dylan and taught a bunch of solid lessons. We found a new investigator. her name is priscilla. She prayed on the first lesson. Awesome. She was super open about everything. the rest of the lessons were just dece. Still super hot.

Thursday : 19. Woah. Im old. I woke up to the announcements that happen outside our house at 6:30 playing las mañanitas which is like the mexico happy birthday. Then they announced my birthday over the announcementss to the pueblo. We eventually found out taht it was the Villavicencios that did it. We ate so much food and now im super fat(ter than i was) We had a bunch of people both members and investigators feed us because they love me. Lol. I ate 12 gansitos, 2 pb&js, a bowl of rice and chicken, 5 quesadillas with churrisso, 2 hot dogs, 2 hamburgers, 4 tamales, 1/4 of a cake, 2 plates of shrimp sabiche, and a half of a pizza. Thats like 12 pounds of food. We also climbed up in our palm trees over our house and cut off all of the stupid brances that drop thousands of seeds everywhere. Thanks to everyone for the love and the prayers and teh gifts! Shoutout to mads for the sick tie and socks, Daddio for the sick watch and candy, and mom for the sick tie and socks, and dave for the cool books! 

Friday : Hottest day of my life. it hit 43 celcius here.... lie 114 and with a thousand percent humidity i think i am going to die. Thats about all. Just hot. And for the next two days as well just hot.

Sunday : Got something stuck in my tooth in the morning and it was super bugging me all day and i finaly got it out with a whole lot of blood right before my nightly prayer. We had a super swell lesson today to a person who ususally doesnt listen when we teach her whole family but we taught just her and it was good!!!

Scripture of the week : DyC 63:9-12 Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act on what you discover.

I love you all so much!!!

Keep it real out there wherever you are!!!

Con mucho amor,

   Elder Runyan

Pic is of my birthday party with the famillia Villavicencio

AND THEY'RE OFF!!!

sick old restored datsun that i guy had driving through from baja california

This week flew by!

I dont even remember in what order things happened.

Here are the things I can remember.

Tuesday : we had a lesson that someone set us up with some jehovas whitnesses in thier house to fight us. We responded with a quick explanation of how they were wrong. They were aastonished. Then the son of family wanted to know more. AWESOME. 

Wednesday : We had our zone meeting and i had to teach a huge chunk of it... Oh well it was good. I taught about why we teach the restauracion. And also why we have to teach each one of the points in each of the lessons.

Saturday : We went to the temple with Braulio and Erick to be thier temple guides. It was kiler. That was an awesome experience. I absolutely LOVE the temple. It is the greatest thing ever and i am super jealous of Madie Osborne and all of her oppurtunities to go to the temple. We also got to sit in on a temple sealing session of two return missionaries. It was absolutely fantastic. I cant wait for that day. 

Sunday : It was the farewell of the two young men that I convinced to go on missions. Erick and Braulio. It was awesome. They did awesome. The farewells here are a little different though. They are after church and the whole family talks. Then we went and visited with the two familes and i played a version of come thou fount that i re-wrote for the guitar. It was killer. Then we said our last goodbyes.

Scripture of the week : Alma 7:10-13 Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act on what you discover.

Thats all I got for you!

I love you all tons!

Also my birthday wish : The biggest gift you could give to me is to invite someone over for missionary lessons on the 19th and write me about it. Also if you arent a member, Invite the missionaries over for a lesson on the 19th and write me what you thought about it. You might be surprised at what you find. This is the greatest gift you could give to me and to the lord and will benifit all of you and your testimonies!

Con Amor,

   Elder Runyan

Some old guys foot

Well that was quick

That was maybe the fastes week i have ever had in the mission. Not much happened. But heres the rundown.

Tuesday : We did service pretty much all day. We built a house out of cement and then put a cement roof on top of it. Then we went to go get food and my comp got bit by a dog. 

Wednesday : we studied and then went out to the doctor to get it looked at and then we went to a members house to take care of him.

Thursday : I went on splits and my comp stayed at thier house. We got quite a few lessons done. And got this new couple who is super interested but it will be really hard to teach them.... they both cant read and one is deaf... They really want to get baptized though...

Friday : Went out and got some work done again on splits to try to make up for lost time. It was one of those days where we just got to walk around for 7 hours getting the doors slammed in our faces. Gotta love them. 

Saturday : We had to go interview this little girl who was getting baptized in a few hours. How precious. Legitimately the cutest thing ever. They had a little old boombox that she had the spanish hymns playing and was reading the scriptures right next to it. Later her dad baptized her and it was the most precious thing ever. We had to run this way and that to get a whole ton of stuff done for this ward activity that is going to happen ina few weeks so we didnt get anything done...

Sunday : We went to church and had 8 investigators there. It was superb. Also the district mission leader came and talked and did a whold bunch of lessons wth us. He is 23 and hasnt been on a mission ut is going to go in a few weeks. He is an awesome dude. .Then we went and taught a menos activo for quite a few years and we made a bet with him that he couldnt go to church 3 times and stay the whole time. If he wins, My comp and i have to give him 2 ties. If we win, He gives us ties.

Scripture of the week : Mosiah 2:23-25 Read it, Ponder it, Pray about it, Act upon what you discover.

Also Happy Birthday Shoutout to Mads Osborne! I hope it rocked your socks!

Thats what ive got for ya this week. Sorry it was so short.

Con amor,

Elder Runyan

Elder Runyan Se va a.... Quedar...

Well whats up!

This week was a blast of fun for a bunch of missioaries that were stuck in the bland land of Oaxaca!

Tuesday : We had Leaders meeting in zanatapec and then we came back and got two lessons in that were references from members and they were crazy. Macaroy. I feel your pain with the people who just kill a bunch of people... 

Wednesday : ACTIVIDAD DE ZONA!!!! SWEETNESS!!! We took a long drive through the jungle and then we ended up at the beach. What a swell day. The beach here is abolutely beautiful. There is nobody for miles and frick it does go on for miles. We got to go into the water up to our knees and wow. Im in love. We took a bunch of cool pics and videos and ate tlayudas on the beach.

Thursday : We were wiped out and the whole zone got to sleep in till 8. What a life. We got up and studied and we both were super sunburned and couldnt put our shirts on for a long time. We got three lessons in at the end of the day, and then we had english classes. Nothing too spectacular.

Friday : We got up and went on splits with Eric and Braulio who are leaving for thier missions on the 17th. It was awesome. We did a whole ton of work. The best part was that we went and taught Osiris. She was timid as usual and didnt want to tell us why she didnt want to pray. Then we got into a huge hour and a half conversation and I successfully answered all of her questions. I told her about how i have fasted and prayed about her specifically and she started to cry. She then asked if she could say the closing prayer at the end. It was awesome. I hope i dont leave so i can baptize her.

Saturday : Left the house at 3 am to head to Tuxtla to see Dallin H Oaks. He was awesome. He talked to us about a lot of things. How we should never assume anything when we are teaching people. We also should live and preach the culture of the gospel. This is the biggest thing that people have problems with as missionaries. Sometimes the missionaries just dont. Then he talked to us and told us that as long as we arent married when we get home from our missions, we are just "medio hombres" or half of a man. That means its gonna be pretty quick for me i guess. i dont wanna be a medio hombre. That means ill have to try really hard 4 weeks after i get home. ;) "meet the mormons" for the first showing in Chiapas. It was dece.

Sunday : Sunday was spent at church in the morning and that was god. After, we went to Hno Temocs house to eat and then Braulio told me that he was feeling really under the weather about his mision. He was just super confused and all of that. Just like i was. So i helped him out with a nice hour and a half pep talk and then i gave him a blessing of comfort. it was a really cool experience. We spent most of the day thinking about the transfers though. 

Today : Got the call this morning. Elder Runyan se va a ....... quedar. Im glad. I am now the oldest person here in the district and the area. Everyone that came with me left. I will be here for 6 months at least. They switched us around though. Elder jones and i have the same amount of time in the mission so we havent been junior or senior comp. Now this transfer, instead of elder Jones being the DL, I am the DL... So thats cool. Now i Have responsibilities.

Scripture of the week : 1 Nefi 10:18 Leerlo. Meditarlo. Ora sobre eso. Haga que siente es nessicario.

Les amo mucho!

Con Amor,

Elder Runyan