Jon's Missionary Letters

  Hey everybody, sorry I didn't wright last week! But I'm here now. Over the last two weeks, Elder Krezdorn and I have been working really hard in our área. We've really enjoyed working with the members and helping them to get the mission work moving a bit more here.  Last week the whole district presidency got changed out and everyone in the San Cristobal district essentially got chewed out for not working enough with the missionaries and the recent converts. Since then there have been some big changes in the attitude in our branch here. As of yet we have 2 people that will get baptized this month, which is helping everyone to get excited about the mission work. This last Tuesday I had the opportunity to do some exchanges with some missionaries here in pur district. They're in an area called Chenalhó. They cover 5 different branches all over the mountains of Chiapas. All of which have the majority of their services in Tzotzil, a local dialect.  The Elder and I went out...

  Hey guys. It's been a minute. I feel bad, I used to be so on top of this, but now here I am... Anyway, life's been good. I finished up my transfer with Elder Peterson, my AP dad, and he got sent off to end his mission in another place. Now I am an AP dad with Elder Krezdorn. Elder Krezdorn and I were in the same district in the MTC, and we're hyped to be together. Shout out to distrito 03-F. We're up here in San Cristobal now, or in other words the place with the nicest weather and the most interesting culture in the mission. To explain, there are 4 APs in the mission, 2 in Tuxtla and 2 in San Cristobal. Having 4 makes it so travel is easier and comunication is better. So now we're here, having a good time. We whitewashed our area and are both in a completely new zone for the both of us, so it's a big change. We're trying to get the balance down of working in the area and also focusing on the assignment. Its a tough balance, but with the Lord everything is...

  ***THIS WAS LAST WEEKS EMAIL (WROTE ON MARCH 11)*** (I don't know why it didn't send haha) This last week was week 13 with my comp, Elder Ricks. We had a long 7 week transfer and then a normal one together, so he officially won the spot for longest comp with me in the mission. However, I am no longer with Elder Ricks, our time came to an end. I'm gonna miss that guy, we got along super well. This time I got my transfers early. I got a call from the APs saturday night, they called me back to Tuxtla. I can't escape this place. They called me to be an assistent to the president. But it's alright, cuz the assignment keeps us moving around the mission quite a bit... Just in these last few days I've learned that we basically don't sleep. Our pdays are pretty spotty and on a loose schedule, so my emails will be coming out a little less consistently. That's why I'm sending one today instead of yesterday. I had to say goodbye to all my immigrant friends in ...

  Hey guys, I hope you all have been good, I've had some good weeks. I'll give a quick rundown. Life's been a little wacky since I've left my last area, I kinda don't have a set schedule anymore. I've been feeling much more confortable in the assignment than I was feeling at the beginning. It was a big adjustment, but we're all good now. In the last 2 weeks I've had the opportunity to be in 3 of my last 4 areas, including Cintalapa, Tapachula and Arriaga. We've been doing zone conferences and other things in each one of the areas, and it's been exciting.  Going back to Cintalapa was a blast, I got to see again a lot of the converts I baptized while I was there. It was awesome, a lot of them have progressed quite well and they all look happy. I couldn't stop smiling my entire time there, I love that place and those people. A lot of what has been happening has been kind of a big blur, so I honestly don't have a ton to share, so that'll ...

  Heyo, what's up guys, didn't do an email last week but I'll get one out this week. Hot season has started, and we're officially feeling it. I'm a little more used to it now, so it's honestly not so bad. This week we had a great time working with our people in teaching. We're seeing some good progress in our area, but we have a lot of people stuck in the age old problem for missionaries in Latin America of not being married.  We're working well with them and doing our best to help them, but so many of them don't have mexican papers or even papers at all, so it's a struggle. We're trying to still visit and help them out, but we also are trying to focus on others who aren't stopped by this part.  If I've gained a testimony of something on my mission, it's following God's laws for marriage and the Word of Wisdom. Following these two commandments really are enormous blessings. I've realized that after seeing so many struggles...

  Hey guys! We had a fun last week. It was a little wild, but it ended up all working out. We had a baptism with a little 10 year old girl named Liliana a few days ago. Her mom is a semi-inactive member of the ward, but she really wanted to get baptised, so we helped her out and explained to the mom the importance of a covenant with God. They are reactivated and they are doing great now. The mom sent us a message after the baptism expressing her gratitude for our insistance on helping her come back to church and getting her daughter baptised. She said she feels very good about the decision of her daughter. We also had zone conference this week and it was crazy getting everything worked out and helping out the mission president with his stuff. We ran 7am-9:30pm days the majority of the week doing stuff with him and the APs to help out the zone and local stakes. It was a good time. The most interesting part of the week were some of our lessons we had tho. We have 2 hatian ladies in t...

  Hey guys! It's been an awesome week! I hope you all had a great one too! This week instead of running over what we did, I wanted to share the story of a good friend of ours I met here on the mission. His name is Luis. His story is inspiring to me, so I figured I'd share it. Luis is a legend. He is probably one of the best people walking on the planet today. I'll explain. He's a member from Venezuela who converted to the church when he was about 16 years old. He served a mission in Venezuela and later served in various other callings in his time as a member in his home country. About a year ago he and his family wanted to go the states so they filled out all the legal paperwork to do so, and it ended up working out for all but him. He stayed back to figure out what had gone wrong while his family went off to the states.  After trying and failing various times he decided to go through with waiting for the CBP 1 appointment and journeying to Mexico. He came through ...

 Hey guys! What's up. We had a solid week this week. Basically our entire teaching pool that came to church last week either left or told us they don't want anything. Todo valio cheetos, as we say here haha. We did have a baptism this week with our buddy Alexander, he's awesome. He's Venezuelan and he wanted to get baptized from the day we met him. He said the thought of having the gift of the Holy Ghost was his biggest motivation. He really was searching for the unique peace that only comes from God. We taught him everything and got him prepared in two weeks! To quote him before we did his interview, he said, "My only vice is my family". He's a goat. The Lord really works miracles with prepared people. This week we taught more people from Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, but we also taught some new people from Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Guyana (east of Venezuela) and even someone from The Netherlands. Tonight we get transfers. I have ...

  Hey all! Last week I did not send an email... but it's all good. I'll just update on this one. This last week we had a ton of success, which was awesome. We had a bunch of people pull up to church for the first time, so that was exciting. This week we taught people from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, and Haiti. It's a lot of fun being in one spot and teaching so many people from different places. We're hoping to have some baptisms this upcoming week! Pray for Alexander and Liliana! Alexander met us this last week and really wants to change his life around and has been looking for years and he feels good about the church. We're working with his to get through some of his current opposition so he can make a covenant with God this next week. Our friend Maria Jose (who got baptised a few weeks back) is awesome. She's getting her family in the US to go to church and she is deep diving into the Book of Mormon. Best part is she ran i...

 Hey guys. Happy new year. Crazy we're already in 2025. Time flies by when you're having fun. New Year's is an enourmous holiday here in latin america, and they go crazy on the fireworks here. It was a pretty wild night. This last week was pretty good. Maria Jose got an answer to her prayers after much study and prayer (on ours and her part). She's hopefully gonna get baptized here soon.  We have a blast with the Venezuelan immigrant members that are here in the area. They are all waiting to recieve information about a migration appointment called CBP 1 that they have to recieve before they travel through Mexico legally. Usually it takes around 3-5 months to recieve the information about the appointment, and they spend all that time waiting for it here in Tapachula. So we have a lot of Venezuelan (and other) homies that are like temporary members of the wards here in Tapachula. I also just finished my blackout year (mission slang for the year where 100% of the time is s...

  Hey guys. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! It's wild that it's already been a year since I last sent an email on Christmas. Last Christmas I didn't have a phone cuz I got robbed 3 days beforehand. But I got a phone this time, so we're improving. We're working super hard in our area. My comp is awesome. I've spent more time with Venezuelans than Mexicans in the past week. They taught me how to make these tamale looking things calles Hallacas. They're pretty good. Anyway, Scripture of the Week is the classic, Lucas 2:10-11 "And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Hope you all had a great Christmas. Love yall. Adiosss - Elder Allen

  Hey all, what's up? We had transfers this week. I'm staying here in Tapachula and I recieved Elder Ricks. He's fron Phoenix, Arizona and has 18 months in the mission. He's a dawg and is a great leader. I'm super excited to get working with him some more in these upcoming months. He's my first american comp that has more time in the mission than me, so it's been fun working with him in that way. We speak a very strange mix of Spanglish a lot of the time. Some phrases just come out easier for us in spanish, so we just make a nice little mix of that and our native tongue when speaking to each other.  He also knows a ton of Tzotzil, a local language spoken in certain parts of Chiapas. He's teaching me some of that too so that when I get sent up to the area where it's spoken I'll be ready.  I also went on divisions this week with some other Elders in the zone while waiting for my comp to pull up. Elder Roberts and Elder Butler. They're awesome d...

  Hey all. This ones gonna be a shorty.  I've done pretty dang good with the weekly email thing. I've gone nearly a full 15 months with only missing one week. But I do gotta say, the motivation to do them does go down over time  But hear I am! Writing for my lovely audience of you guys. Y'all are the best. This week I killed my comp. Not literally, it's mission slang for being with a companion for his last transfer. It was fun. He was my first companion with more time in the mission than me for a while, and my first companion with more than a year in the mission for the whole time while I'm with him. Elder Lizarraga will be missed. Now since he's gone I've just been compless and I've been in divisions all week! It's been a good time. Scripture of the Week is Matthew 12:22 "And in His name shall the Gentiles trust". Odds are, you're a Gentile. Ask yourself, how can I trust in Jesus' name? That's the beautiful thing of covenants a...

  Hey guys, it's been a good week. We had a big baptism this week, it was pretty cool. It was with the people I talked about last week.  We frequently visited the family and our buddy Cesar throughout the week to help them along. By the end of the week 6 of them had told us baptism was the right thing for them. Miracles happen. Esteban, Steven, Aran, Lewis and Andrewys all were baptised, along with Cesar. We're gonna work with the rest of their families now. Scripture of the Week is Mosiah 18, the whole chapter. It's a great chapter. The Book of Mormon is so cool. If you don't have a testimony in it, you should get one (it's pretty cool). Anyway that'll be it, it's a short one this week. Adios. - Elder Allen • The baptism of our buddies • Volcán Tacaná

  Hey guys! How's everything going? Everything is great here! So I'll get into it! First off, I am in Tapachula, which means there are a lot of sicknesses and a lot of Immigrants. I will explain. This week we had 2 people get dengue in the zone and another 2 get stomach bugs, so it was a whacky week. We were doing exchanges with everyone to keep the areas from dying. When someone gets sick they stay in all day and their comp has to be with them whether or not they are actually sick. So we go and take the unsick comp out to work in their area, while one of us stays back with the sick guy. So... with so many sick people, we did a lottt of exchanges this week. It was a good time. The upside of the week was the immigrants. I've mentioned before that this town is mostly people on the move to the States from countries in South America. The great thing about this is that they are very willing to hear the gospel as most of them have seen missionaries before in other countries, and ...

  Hola hola, how's everyone doing? I hope everyone is great.  This week was weird because I spent the almost the entire time either on a bus or in Tuxtla. We had a member from the Quorum of the 70 come to our mission and have a couple conferences with us. They had the conference in Tuxtla, so we all had to travel up. It's like a 6 and a half hour bus ride, so it's not exactly just a day trip. It was a good time tho. The guy's name is Elder Moises Villanueva, he's from Oaxaca, and he's a cool dude. His wife also spake a lot, she's pretty cool too.  In total I ended up traveling to Tuxtla on Tuesday, having a leadership conference on Wednesday, having the whole mission conference on Thursday, staying and working in Tuxtla on Friday, and going to the temple with our ward on Saturday and also traveling back that day.  (Side note, our ward temple trip also happened to be this week, so instead of going back to Tapachula and traveling with them back to Tuxtla, we j...

  Hey guys, how's it going? First off, we had transfers. I got sent out of good ol La Pimienta in Tuxtla and sent very far. I am now in Tapachula. It is the southern-most city of a decent population in all of Mexico, so that's kind of fun. We are right on the border with Guatamala, and there are soooo many immigrants here. The majority of the city is Venezuelan or Colombian. We are step number one on the path to the States through Mexico. I'm gonna miss la Pimienta tho, it was a good ward and the members and recient converts were awesome. Also shout out to Elder Roquemore as well, he was a great comp and I'll miss him a ton  They sent me off to Tapachula as a Zone Leader, so I'm excited to see what the future holds. I didn't have that much time as a district leader, so I thought I'd stay like that for longer, but I guess more ZLs were needed. Tapachula is a fun place because everyone always jokes about getting sick here (it's really hot and the health qu...