Jon's Missionary Letters

 

  Hey guys. It's comin down to it. I'm currently entering into my last full week as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's crazy it's already come. Time flies by fast. I ended up cutting a transfer off of my original assignment to end in August,  that way I don't miss the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester of school. It was sad and quite a big decision to make, but in the end I got a rather direct spiritual confirmation about it and feel good about the service I have completed here. In this last week we did some good work. We helped a family that's new to the town come to church and make some friends. We're gonna work with them so that baptism is a possibility for them as soon as possible.  We're still working with our buddy Carmelino, he's great. We're helping him and his Evangelical wife understand the doctrine of faith, miracles and healing. It's a work in progress, but it's coming along. The mission has...

  It was a chill week. We had what will be my last zone conference. It was a good one. I also went on divisions in a place called Comalapa. It's a place that hasn't had missionaries for over 2 years until recently. It was closed because there was a ton of narco trafficking and cartel influence. It was super dangerous. But now it's safe. The Pakales (the local anti-cartel police force) went in and fought them off. Now, going through the town there are police trucks and fully armed units about every 4 blocks. Along the way to the town there are buildings full of bullet holes and battle marks from the fighting. It's pretty gnarly. The town is super ready for missionaries though. While I was there with Elder Wilson, they guy who's area it is, we found a ton of success and really prepared people for the gospel. This week in our area we've been seeing progress from our friend Carmelino. He says going to church and reading the Book of Mormon daily are now habits for hi...

  We had a good week here in Juarez. We had the baptism of a girl named Abril. Abril had been in teaching by missionaries for almost 2 years. After many unsuccessful attempts by many different missionaries to getting her baptized, she just grew cold to the idea and her automatic response was no. I mentioned a little bit about her in my last email. After much patience and asking why she didn't want to, Elder Call and I learned that it was because an aunt of hers had told her that after she gets baptized, she wouldn't be able to dance or listen to music. We then explained that that wasn't true and then almost immediately after she whispered to her mom that she wanted to get baptized in the next weekend. We had to travel to Comitan to do the baptism indoors. We would've done it in a river, but it's been raining a lot and we didn't want to do it in the rain and mud. We got our branch president (who is also Abril's uncle) to do the baptism which was awesome. It w...

 Hey guys, got a new week down the bag. It was a good week. We've gotten down the work style in Union Juarez a bit better now and are seeing some progress. It's fun and rough being in a place where everybody knows everybody. The other day we were knocking doors, asking for somebody named Carmen and the man in the door asked to clarify, "the one who wears a hat? or the one who drinks a lot?" I think that kind of interaction gives you a good vision for how the town is. The area is super fun, but also pretty hard. We did get two people to church for their very first time (extremely rare). Pray that Carmelino and Nery keep progressing. They like studying the Book of Mormon with us and praying, and they felt a pull to the church after we shoveled some sand for them a few times. We should hopefully have a baptism with a little girl this next weekend. There is a little girl named Abril who's said no to baptism for the last year and a half, but just this last week we fina...

  Hey guys! I didn't get around to sending my weekly email last week, but I got it now! I've been transferred into a new area, a place called Union Juarez in the zone of Comitan. Union Juarez is a tiny little town about 45 minutes away from Comitan. We're also about 40 minutes from the Guatemalan border. There are about 900 people in the town including women and children and babies.  In the pueblito, about every single household has been contacted and taught by the missionaries multiple times in the last few months, so we are rather well known in the town. That doesn't stop us from giving it more tries.  We do, however, have other places in our area than just Union Juarez. We have other small towns that are decently close that we walk to ocasionally, some of which have active members. We end up walking about 15-20 kilometers a day to get out to these places and proselyte, but it's worth the journey. The greatest part of the area is definitely the weather and the vib...