Derek: Captain's Log Week 5: El Campo

3 Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto  this generation.(D and C 31:3)

This is our last full week at the MTC, and we got a lot of praying and pranking done. So, on Friday we got to go on exchanges into the field.  I went with this guy named Elder Cook and we took a 45 minute bus ride to the area we were going to. By the time we got there the culture shock hit! When you spend 6 weeks straight just inside a nice Americanized building you kinda forget that you are in a 3rd world country. There were houses (shacks made of wood planks and sheet metal) stacked on each other, with wild dogs, cats, and chickens. And everything was super loud, because everyone was blasting music as loud as they could. There are no traffic laws, or at least no one enforces them, and everyone has a motorcycle. We got to our appointment and I gave the opening prayer, shared a scripture, asked her how she felt about it, and bore my testimony. My companion did the rest of the lesson and I had no clue what was going on. But, afterwards I found out the she was an inactive member and apparently she told my comp that that scripture was exactly what she needed at the time. That just made me super excited to get out there and teach these people. I found it humbling to look at these people who literally had nothing, but to see them as children of God. And to see the potential they have in not just this life but in the next one too.

On Sunday I was called to give my 3rd talk in a row. It was in Spanish, but the first thing I did when I got up there was in English and I said, "maybe it was president or maybe the Holy Ghost, but somebody has a sense of humor." It went well but right afterwards Elder Jackson and I sang a duet of '' I'll go were you want me to go". It went super well; we litterly made the girls cry and even my companion (don't tell him I said that). I also had a really great lesson on patience that day.

There has been a lot of pranking going on here this week. We didn't start it but you have my word that we are gonna finish it. So they have been trying to hide alarm clocks in our room so they go off in the middle of the night, but we're not that stupid so we would always find them first and hide them in their room. One of the alarm clocks is stuck between their cabinets and their wall and its set to go off at 2:20 every day. We also got one of the kids’ inflatable dinosaur, Elder Rex, and hung him from the ceiling with a note that read, "Good Bye Cruel World" and they are kinda mad about that because that was their district’s mascot. This is all in good fun and nobody is going too far so its super fun. 

Today to celebrate Elder Jackson's birthday we all set up mini golf courses in our room and we are going to use some of the balls and putts that one guy brought to play mini golf. It's going to be super fun so expect pictures next week.

Today was my last time going to the temple for a while. I've really have grown to love the temple and to truly know the importance of the work done there. I always learn something new every time I go and I never want to leave when I get there. But I am excited to serve these people starting Monday.

 Scripture covers for me

 Scripture covers for Dylan

Hey, I love you. Tell everyone I said hi, and if you have time can u send me the vid of my party with me and the duck? The kids here don’t believe how great it was.

Hey I don’t know how to check how much is own my card so if you can find that out before next week that would be amazing. And my camera is being dumb, so sorry for no pictures. I set the Christmas tree up and it looks super great, so thanks again. We leave on Monday so I might email again then or maybe not at all. I love you and I hope everyone is doing well.