Another week but full of sickness.....

This week started off really well!

Monday : Gave a blessing to Hno Juan and it was super long and i used a couple of words that I didnt know... I had to ask my comp what they meant afterwards. Super cool.

Tuesday : Reunion de lidres where we got a new tema for the mission. Oh boy. Its really cool and super long. Then we talked about being more united as a compañerismo when we teach. they used us as an example. It was super good. We absolutely killed it.No more than 40 seconds each one of us. Then we had noche de hogar and eric and braulio opened thier mission calls! Eric is going to ciudad Obregon and Braulio is going to Puebla norte. Sweet. Obregon looks beautiful.

Wednesday : Jones was really sick today so we went on splits and i went out and taught while he stayed inside. It was really quite cool. Braulio has a solid testimony. He is gonna be a sweet missionary. We taught a whole bunch of people, one of which was some old dude named jose who only wears fedoras on his head because he has cancer on his scalp. He is super open and i am excited to keep teaching him.

Thursday : We got up and studying and then we found 2 more scorpions and so we moved everythig out of the house and studied outside while the fumigators came and fumigated and then i just threw up. So that was a fun day. Just throwing up all day. yay. we went out and taught at 6 and got a few lessons in to some of our investigators like osiris. She said that she believes in the book of mormon and JS but she doesnt want to pray for an answer to baptisim...

Friday. We studied about listening to the spirit and then fasting. so we started a consegration fast and we are still going. We are going to break it on monday. We had an absolutely killer day where we talked to all sorts of people. We learned about the church of the cornerstone ( interesting) and then we talked to a psychopath who is gonna kill some stalker that he has. Then we taught some of these people who were going to church for 3 years and never got baptised and they said they want to now. It is a family of 5. We can baptize them.

Saturday : We went to district conference in zanatapec and we learned a lot about our patriarchal blessings. it was super col. I am gonna study taht so much. We took a van to the conference and we were all packed in for 2 hours and no ac. YUM. when we got back it was 8:30 so we just hit the sack.

Sunday : We got Suje to come to Church!!! Suje is a menos activo that we have been talking to and she is super shy but really wants to change her life again. She came and she really liked it. It was the general version of district conference so after we went and took pictures and introduced her to president George and his wife and she really thought they were swell. We got back at 9 this time and had to go straight home, but it was fun.

Scripture of the week : D&C 88:86   

Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free; entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes. 

Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act upon what you discover.

Con amor como siempre,

Elder Runyan

Well that was quick.

Didnt I just email you yesterday?

This week flew by. 

Tuesday : We taught and stuff. I was with elder sanchez. He is super terrible at teaching. It frustrates the heck out of me because i cant ever do anything without him contradicting me... Then we got home and I had a missin home kinda night. Gotta love them. 

Wednesday : Well at 1 oclock this morning i woke up to elder sanchez screaming. That was fun. He was yelling and saying "algo mi pico" or something stung me. We blew it off and he slept ing the hammock. Woke up and started cleaning stuff out because it was freaking him out and he couldnt talk right. We found a scorpion. It was about 7 inches long. Quien sabe como entre nuestra casa.... craziness. Then we taught a lil and went out to lunch. that was sweet. Awesome lunch. But heres the thing. I DRANK A TON OF APPLEJUICE. youd think id have learned my lesson. LOL. (Shoutout to Mads, and the rest of rebeleague and for that midnight in paris)

Thursday : Well we were 100% obedient today. It as awesome. A bunch of the investigators that we were about to drop just got super interested and i dont know if i like that or not... But theres that. OBEDIENCE BLESSINGS ARE REAL.

Friday : We had one of our Zone leaders come with us after the district meeting and he just went on splits with me. So theres that. Good ole Elder Rocha. What a guy. He made me teach every part of every lesson because i am going to train a kid who doesnt know anything next transfer. MI PRIMER HIJO!

Saturday : HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO MY VALENTINE! (you know who you are)

Today was pretty good! Elder jones mistaked a lesbian girl for a guy at our lunch sita and that was pretty funny and then we had a couple lessons and then had english class. we were told to come home early so we were messing around and figured out that tang powder is really flammable so we mad a flamethrower. SWEET. #NEVERGROWOLD

Sunday : This day was a tad bit frustrating. We went to church where i helped these two kids in our ward set up thier iphones. They bought the iphone 4 from juchitan. Super used. Its awesome. I love it. I also hooked them up with all of my music. Then we went to go to lunch and there learned all about the freemasons and how im gonna be one. We were reading up on it and there are quite a few missionaries who join a lodge on thier missions or when they get back. SWEET. Maybe Ill look into that. LOL. then we ( I ) taught a few lessons. Jones is in such a downer mood. Idk. Its kinda lame...

Scripture of the week : 3 Nephi 27:27 And know ye that ye shall be judges of this people, according to the judgment which I shall give unto you, which shall be just. Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act upon what you discover.

Thats what Ive got for you this week!

Con amor, and stay gold my children!

Elder Runyan.

Yo

Heyo folks! This week was a quick one like usual so ill get right into it!

Tuesday : We got up and cleaned the crap out of the house which felt awesome!!!! Then we worked on the area book and then we went out and had lunch and then made cement blocks and helped build part of a house. It was solid. Then we taught a couple of our new investigators. it was great.

Wednesday : We had the reunion de lideres and our new zone leader sucks. Apparently Elder Cosigua is gone.... Im gonna miss that guy. The new guy is poop. Then we went and met a guy who makes hammocks. His name is Jehova nad he says he really wants to be baptized. So theres that. He said he wants to make a custom hammock for me! AWESOME!

Thursday : Well we payed the federal police in basketball this morning and absolutely creamed them. So theres that. They were super cool and we invited them to all be baptized. Then we had the district meeting and then i went to Sanfransisco del mar. It was awesome. Other thatn elder sanchez teaches a little weird but we got a lot of work done in 4 hours.

Friday : We had a whole ton of study time and then we went out, taught two lessons and then came back to ixhuatan. We ate lunch and then we blitzed the area. We taught 23 lessons in our area. It was awesome. then we had guitar classes and all three of my students had broken strings.... So we just hung out and we taught them about the book of mormon.

Saturday : We hit the ground running and taught up a storm during the markado where we baught new side bags. They are sick. They are handmade. DOPE. Then we taught until we completed our higher metas for the semana. Then we just went and visited members.

Sunday : Church and sickness. The chinkonguña is kicking in again so we went back and slept because we had already completed everything.

Scripture of the week : 2 Nephi 9:39  

O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.

Read it. Pray about it. Ponder it. Act upon what you discover.

Thats what ive got this week and more pics in the other emails!!!

Como siempre,

Con amor,

Elder Runyan.

Finally done with 12 weeks!!!

Hello there outside world! This week was crazy. Very crazy. And very short.

Monday : Well we got together with a bunch of our zone and had a mud soccer tourney which was sweet and super muddy. That was probably the coolest thing all week. HTen we cleaned off and did family history.

Tuesday : We got a good amount of work done and we talked to two people who were baptized and never recieved the holy ghost. Awk. So that was more than 6 months ago so we are gonna re baptize them and that means two free baptisims.

Wednesday. We got a good mount of work done and found a cool kid who was dribbling a soccer ball the entire time during our lesson while paying attentiona dn answering every question. apparently he pays better attention while doing that. Then the elders from the Morro and the elders fromSanfransisco Del Mar came over and slept in our house because Elder Valensuela from the area of the 70 is coming and weneeded to get up at 2 am.

Thursday. Got up at 2 am and headed to the church with a change of clothers and off to tuxtla for the reunion at 9. We got there and it was super cool! I got to see Elder Hansen (My comp from the MTC) and a couple of the other guys that i have met and come to know throught my time here! Then we heard from Elder Valensuela and it was rad. He was very inspiring. THis year we are working on recent convert retention. People dont like to stay in the church here and there are over 90000 members in this mission and less than 1/10th are active. It is crazy. Then we Went to the doctors appointment for Elder Jones and he needed to go get x rays and so we did that and when we came back the place was closed. Well just have to do it another day.

Friday : Well I woke up and felt like crap. Elder jones went to go do his stuff. Apparently after looking at the x rays, his back is crazy deformed from birth and he might very well need surgery on his spine because his obturator foramen is sealing off and if it does then he loses all control of his legs. so we need to get an MRI done to see if there is muscle or nerve damage. so that sucks. Then my crap got worse and worse throught the day and they narrowed it down to chinkonguña. So I felt like i was about to die. So then the Mission president and Elder Valensuela from the Area of the 70 gave me a blessing. Maybe the coolest blessing I will ever recieve in my life. I got better very quickly after that as you can imagine. So thats pretty rad.

Saturday : We got up and headed out to get some last minute stuff done, and then went with a bunch of people to go back to our area but the bus broke down so we had to stay the night in Chahuites with our zone leaders. That was nice. 

Sunday : well we got back just in time for sacrament and then we left and changed out of our dirty clothes and showered and did our weekly planning. Thats all.

This morning. The changes. Nothing. Our whole surounding 2 districs are now one and nobody got moved. Thats all!

Scripture of the week : Psalms 46:10

 “Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

 Read it. Pray about it. Ponder it. Act on what you discover.

Much love to you all!!! 

Con Amor

Elder Runyan

Las Hermanas están bien chafa. Pero la Navidad es la mejor

Wowzers what a week. Ill just jump right into it. 

 Tuesday : Started out good with a bucket shower and then we had a solid study sesh and killed our first two lessons with a member. They were awaseome i invited both to be baptised and they both said yes. Miracles do happen. Then we went to teach armando again. Tómala. Malo idea. I should have walked right past his house. He started bashing us right away and started saying stuff like joseph smith needs to repent because he is a sinner and is going to go to hell and then he took the book of mormon that we gave him earlier and said "el libro del mormon es basura" and threw it on the ground. Too far man. We picked up the book, put it in my bag and then told him he was being incredibly rude and then we left. Oh well ill go pray for him.

Wednesday : Got some good estudiar time this morning and then headed out to teach. We taught a bunch of decent lessons and then went to one of our inveestigators houses to eat empanadas and take some swings at a piñata. Then we shared some scrips and headed home.

Thursday : Christmas and it was awesome!!! Talking to the family for a chunk of the day, Hearing that my best friend got her mission call and didnt tell me but then did a different opening sort of thing for me! SWEET! I am so stoked for you and i know you are going to do amazing things in Chicago!!! 

Friday : Curveball! So Elder taufa was shipped off to Comitan along with elder Mena becasue some sisters there were being harrassed. Crazy. Sweet. So the other part which is not cool is that we got two hermanas. They are aright. Idk. Hopefully they dont keep us from having fun.

Saturday. We did some home improvement with my comp and we installed a mcguyvered water heater for hot showers and we fixed the water and wow awesome. He was the district leader from the other area and he is now my comp. Sweet. He is super hard working and he is a white dude from Chihuahua. 

Sunday : We got a million and a half lessons because we are only teaching 30 min lessons now and we got 40 contacts to finish off the 200.

Scripture of the week 1 Nephi 4:13 Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act upon what you discover.

 13 Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

Con amor
  

Elder Runyan

Pics will be coming in a later email becuase this cyber is chafa.

1 Transfer Down 14 To Go!

Well this week absolutely flew by! i am super stoked and now I have completed 1/8th of my mission. Woah... Slow down...

Sweet week though!

Tuesday : Woke up and Elder Bradshaw and Elder Mena came over to practice taking initiative in lessons. Its a really hard thing to do when you dont know spanish, and i guess its hard to do when you know spanish too. I cant imagine how hard this would be if i hadnt studied the scriptures like i did in the MTC.... Then we went out and taught a lesson to Hno. Armando and i took the initiative like crazy! KILLED THAD SPIDE. (homis shoutout) and then we went and taught Hna Flor which went really well, and we helped her decorate her christmas tree with her grandkids. I really needed that! Thats a shoutout to you grandma! Then we taught a couple other lessons to a few new investigators, and one we just taught sitting on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere... Then one of our investigators brought a friend to the noche hogar and they both said they really liked it when they left!!!

Wednesday : REUNIÓN DE LA ZONA! Headed out early to zone conf in Chahuites. what a fun time that was!!! So we are doign this whole worldwide thing called "el es la Dádiva" or "He is the gift" as you might know it there. All the way through january 18th we will be focusing on this message of how christ was a gift to us and the biggest gift we will ever recieve. The goal is to strengthen peoples testimonies of Jesus Christ and to ultimately share it with everyone in the entire world. Also from what we have heard, The church has purchased the most expensive billboard real estate in history to display this message throughout the duration of this campaign. I would like to challenge each of you to go visitwww.mormon.org/christmas and find out what it means to you. Its a little hard here becasue the people arent very bright, and they dont even know what  the word Dádiva means. So yeah. But our mission goal is 400 baptisims in that time period. Well I have a surprize for that one in one of the other days... and then we got choco bananas again. (shoutout to the crew) and i got two packages! One from Holly Gardner, and one from Greta Anderson. None others yet... :( I hope they get here in time for the reunion in ariaga. Also we bought these goat hove whips for $5. that was cool. 

Thursday : Got up early to do my laundry and Hno. Armando was out shoveling gravel so i went and helped him for a good half hour while lopez slept becasue his skuliosys or however you spell that was hurting really bad. It sucks typing here becasue all of the computers try to correct it into spanish... andyway, It felt super good doing service. Then we practiced contacting with "la dádiva" and a few other things. Super cool.Then i went on splits with elder mena for the day. It went pretty decent. We went to reforma and tried for some appointments pero nadie fue esta... So we went back to ixhuatan and had a couple of pretty chill appointments. Then we had a noche hogar con hno victor y hna alejandra and all of thier familia. It was super cool. We learned how to speak a bunch of zapoteco and also learned how to pray in zapoteco. Its nuts... There are so many languages here... Zapoteco legit sounds like a mix of french and doctor suess... CRAZY!

Friday : Slept in for a while becasue i was up, double dragoning for a solid half hour at 3 am. fun. I was also so exhausted that I didnt wash out my mouth and nose very well, and the dragon breath (shoutout to drag) just sat and brewed in my nostrils and lingered for the rest of the day. That stuff is stronger than altoids. Then we had breakfast kinda with hno Armando and it was tamales with iguana... Strrangely good. Maybe the weirdest thing that i have eaten thus far... It was like super chewy( like hard gum) meat that came as a full package with the head and parts of the tail including the vertebrae and the skin. Like scales. Tough to chew but not half bad. THen we went to go teach one of our investigators and she answered the door topless... So needless to say she went and put some clothes on... People these days.. Dirty spides... Then we got rejected about a million times by people because "Oh no. Somos catholicos." It doesnt matter. Thats not the point. We are trying to help you come closer to christ... Then we taught the guitar class and that was fun as always but hard becasue people here arent musically talented at all. They cant carry a tune in a camelback.... That pretty friggen eazy. Overall super difficult day with a bad stomach ache, crazy headache, heat flashes, sucking up a runny nose that tastes like vomit, walking for over 5 hours straight, in 100+ degree weather, and getting yelled at and getting doors slammed in our faces. But thats not what makes a day good or bad. Its your attitude. You can let it drag you down as the dust of the earth or you can keep a good attitude and remember that as you do this you are standing shoulder to shoulder with Jesus. Let god give you strenght and he will. Let him in. I am still happy as can be at the end of this day. Remember that.

Saturday : well not much happened other than we had 3 BAPTISIMS TODAY!!! Two twins and thier grandma!!! And Elder Bradshaw and I did a musical number which cosited of the flute, guitar, and singing in two languages. Absolutely killer. Then we staed after for a while and i was just messing around playing stuff that i wrote and stuff that i know and a crowd gathered. People are absolutely in awe here. I dont think i am really that good though... 

Sunday : Started off with church which is always good, and i bore my testimony this time but way better. Neato. Well we caught, killed and ate an armadillo. Its the second time i have eaten it. It is good but the process is a little weird... Then we went to the church for ever and tried to watch the Christmas devo from the conference center and it didnt work super well becasue the internet here is slower than snail snot. Then came home and konked out. 

Today : Got a call from the assistants to the prez and recieved news about transfers!

I am not getting transferred and niether is Elder Mena, but Lopez and Bradshaw are and My new comp starting tomorrow at about 3 is going to be Elder Taufa who is a tongan who lives in arizona!!! #stoked!!!!! Also sad for lopez to leave, but life is life. It was fun, and a memory i will never forget.

Scripture of the week : Isaiah 43:1-5 Read it. Pray about it. Ponder it. Act upon what you discover.

1 But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

 2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

 3 For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

 4 Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.

 5 Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

Te amo todo!

I might be on for a lil while today, so HMU!!!

WHASS GOOD CUH

Well this week wasnt very interesting.

Ill spare you some of the boring details.

Tuesday : One of those really hard mission days. We had 2 short lessons with people that we werent planning on teaching because nobody was home. We literally walked the streets for 7 hours. What a killer that is in the heat....

Wednesday : Sort of a roller coaster day. Felt super wiped all day, and it was probably from all the walking the day before. The district meeting topic was things that have helped you on your mission. We all shared some scriptures which were super helpful, and then we watched a video called the obra de salvación. It was super cool, and everything helped a ton. It all put me in such a good mood. Here is the link.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd30i48a3do) Its in english. Then we taught some really quality lessons and then had dinner at Hno. Pacos house and then shared a frikin killer spiritual thought.

Thursday : Thanksgiving! kinda. Well we had some pretty good appointments this morning and then we hustled all over the place getting stuff ready for the Tuxtla trip and we ran into one of our investigators in the street who had been evading us at all costs. I went and talked to her, and she agreed to meet with us and to come to church. She said she was scared of us. hmm. Well then we took a taxi to Tapana at night. There we stayed at the other elders house and had a Thanksgiving feast in the style of broke missionaries. Egg salad sandwhiches. Sweet. Then we konked out early because it had been a long day.

Friday : TUXTLA!!!

I have never been more excited to go to wallmart in my life.

Well we got up early to catch the 6:30 bus from Tapanatapec to Tuxtla, (3 hours) and then got there, got our visa stuff done, and headed to wallmart. WHAT AN EXPERIENCE. We walked in and it was like i was back home. I had literally forgotten what the real world was like... So we went crazy. I spent a grundle of money on food that is impossible to get anywhere else in the mission like nutella, peanut butter, real oatmeal, and butter among other things. You dont know how much you miss peanutbutter until you cant have it... Then i loaded up on christmas stuff. What a blast that was! A small Christmas tree for 30 pesos ($2.50) and some ornaments for 8 pesos(about 50 cents) and then we got some christmas gifts and stockings to put it all in. FUNNN! Then it was time to leave so we packed up and headed out to the mission office to wait for the others that were heading back. They gave us the packages that we had. I only got the one that was from amazon. Thats it. Ill keep you all informed just in case, but idk if im going to get them in time. Also i didnt get your letter yet Mads... Im dissapointed at this whole mail thing to and from Mexico. Then we came back and stayed the night in Tapanatapec.

Saturday : Craziness. On the way back from Tapanatapec, we passed through one of the immagration stops, and they wouldnt take my copy of my passport anymore because of no particular reason so they took me off the bus, and into the temporary jail room. Albeit scary but fun. We then called some people and got it figured out and took the next bus. we got back home and I finally got sick. Sounds like Elder Hondy Mac and I are on the same page. Double dragon for most of the morning. It was brutal. When it finally calmed down long enough to breathe, I took one of those cipr pills (SHOUTOUT TO RICH INGERBRETSEN FOR THE CIPRO PILLS) and it plugged me right up. Then we had 2 lessons and then came back and slept because exhaustion.

Sunday : Well Sunday. It was good. Like sundays usually are. We had sacrament, and then we taught the Gospel principals class, and then our comida appointment fell through so we played the piano for a while and then we went to one of our lessons. We were just sitting ther etalking like civilized people and then the lady started talking about her cousin who was deported from america and started yelling at me and telling me how much she hated america and i just sat there and took it. That was hard. Im not going to go more into it or what my thoughts are on the topic, but that was hard. THen we went to the church with Juan and Amalia to help them do thier family history which is awesome becasue i dont know how to do family history. So i basically played piano for another hour and a half. I have learned how to play most of the hymns on piano as well as on guitar. Then i started my video journal. SICK. I am going to record a short video entry every night along with my written. So there you go! Thats my week in a nutshell!

I wont be on for long today. Sorry..

Scripture of the week : Jacob 4:10 Read it. Ponder it. Pray about it. Act upon what you discover.

Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.

I love you all, Always forever

Near and far, Closer together

Everywhere I will be with you

Everything I will do for you.

Siempre con amor,

    Elder Runyan