Week 22~~~

Well the time flies when you are having fun! This marks 5 months in Mexico (although because of weird stuff in two weeks I hit the 1/4 mark)! I cannot believe how much I have changed and learned here, its honestly so amazing how much things have changed. I am significantly skinnier than when I left, I apparently give the mission lessons in my sleep on occasion, and I am completely comfortable with Mexican dogs driving and food no longer tastes right without a little bit of salsa; although the biggest change is that I have developed the need to put lettuce cheese and tomatoes on hamburgers, those of you who know me, realize the significance of this development. More than changing eating habits, my companion and I have been working hard here in barrio progreso. Unfortunately it looks like this is going to be a difficult transfer to baptize in, which given that we are supposed to be in an area that is easy to baptize in, is a major problem. I often wonder if I am the reason why none of my companions and I have success in baptizing. It seems like I go with people and immediately its like the area stops baptizing or my companion stops a streak, I dunno. Its not like anyone can pinpoint something that I am doing wrong specifically, and I feel like I am working, but still at times you wonder if its because of me. 

All of that said I had an interesting experience this week where we had to leave a dad of family of recent converts because he just was not progressing (out of sheer laziness). I chastised him pretty darn hard, but it actually brought me to tears because I could not imagine how I would feel if a missionary was teaching my Dad, and had to leave him. Needless to say that was hard. The area that I am in is a little bit poorer, and spread out, so we are always taking buses, which I think were designed for someone around 5 foot 8 because I almost always hit my head on the railings. I remembered this week something that Bishop Jaggi always said to me that really touched my heart, he always said that the harder you work on your mission the more beautiful your wife (he never failed to comment he was nearly running between appointments in his mission). I don't know if that is really true, but I have honestly found that I get so many more blessings, so many more people to teach, and the spirit so much more when I work hard, and I love it. Anyways, I am out of time

Love, 

Elder Standridge

 Show message history

Week 21 ~~~

Pictures are from Kevin's apartment that was below standards - he has moved to a new one!!!  THANK GOODNESS!!!!

Well this week was certainly a little different. There were little hiccups with the visa, and apparently I have been living in Mexico for like 100 days illegally (whoops), but everything is fine and taken care of now. Also, we finally moved houses, and so now that I am out of the gutter, I am in this new house where I have air conditioning, no snakes or leeches, and dragon ball z drawings on the walls (it was an internet cafe before it was a house. Honestly its pretty darn cool. 

As far as things with the area go, we are moving along just nicely, we have found a girl whose mom told her she wants her to wait until she is 18 to get baptized, but the girl is awesome and has a real testimony, so it feels really weird to be giving her advice, because like its just like me, the only difference is she is 14 instead of 16. I honestly have really come to know just how important it is to get married to the right person. So many people get married and can never get a divorce here. It is honestly bad, and so many people are unable to receive the ordinances they need to be saved because they are not married and for no other reason. 

We did divisions this week, and I got to go out with a gordito (that translates to little fat person, but in spanish it sounds a lot nicer) named Elder Roque. He is honestly just so kind and loving, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

This week I have really been questioning about the role of leaders here in the mission. A lot of times leaders tell missionaries to do things that are just flat out wrong, or if not wrong, they are certainly not what is best for the person (baptizing when not ready, or leaving people who really are just progressing slowly), and I have been pondering about if our leaders are our bosses in that we should just do what they tell us to, or if they council more than anything else. A ward member mentioned to me (ex-missionary) that it was the latter (he is why I have been thinking on this), and I do not see anything in the manuals about obeying leaders, but I dunno, I am just a little conflicted. 

This week like I really realized how important it is to ask questions, like not just any questions, but questions to help people learn, questions to understand people, and more than anything, questions to make sure people understand what you are trying to tell them. Its honestly essential to everything we do as missionaries, and I really have such a long way to go.  Anyways, that's it for me for the week. I am excited, I love you all lots.

Love, 

Elder Standridge

Week 20 ~~ Kevin Misses; Harry Potter; Weight Lifting; and his BED!!!!

Well this week was certainly great (never enough time to write) like we have found some honestly really good people that have started to progress very nicely. I would really like to tell the stories of a couple very powerful lessons that we had this week. Down here in mexico there is an incredible amount of loyalty to the catholic church, people are catholic because their parents were catholic, not because of any personal testimony. One of the things that I have started doing in lessons is that when someone mentions being in a set religion I always mention that the Jews crucified Jesus because of loyalty to the religion of their fathers, and that if we reject the gospel for the religions of our fathers then we are the same as they are. As I thought about that some more, I realized that if we do the same, if we are Mormon because our parents were Mormons or we forget why we are Mormon, we fall into the same tap as the farisees. We always need to have our own personal conviction of every single aspect of the gospel. With that said, as I look inwards, I have really been trying to find more testimony about the resurrection, it has always been a place where I have felt my testimony is week, its just hard for me to think about life after death at my age. Another powerful lesson was with  a man who said that he did not want to do anything except listen to us. His wife was baptized, but he did not want to because he just didn't feel like it. And we talked to him about the importance of baptism for like 20 minutes when he stopped us, and said look you have just talked to me for 20 minutes and tried to convince me to do this, when I just wanted to learn from you two. In that moment I realized the difference between a missionary and a seminary teacher. A seminary teacher teaches factual information  about the bible to encourage the growth of testimonies, while a missionary invites people to take actions that will bring about the work of salvation. I opened my bible to Paul´s sermon on Mars hill, and began to explain Elder Cook´s talk from conference. Paul established no church among the athenians, nor wrote them an epistle because they only wanted the factual information. When we forget the works of the Gospel, the actions of helping people and become some obsessed with knowledge that it is all that matters, we lose the heart of the gospel. With that and several other scriptures I gave my first chastisement of a person on a mission. As much as I may seem to be very argumentative, I actually really hate correcting others, but this man really needed it, and afterwards, he promised to read the book of Mormon by tonight and will get baptized if he feels it is true! So updates this week. The final was a testimony from some members to a single mother about the blessings of the gospel in the family. Wow, the gospel and the fact that we can have our families forever is powerful. I can think of no greater blessing, and I love the gospel for that.

I LOVE you all lots, gotta go

Elder Standridge

 Show message history

Week 19

Kevin is back in the city of Veracruz, and his living conditions are terrible...all your prayers would be appreciated!!!

(everyone) Well this week is going to be super short, but I am just going to share a little bit about what has been going on this week, and how awesome that conference was (that was honestly the best). So I got transferred from my little Santiago (I will be getting rich some day and buying a summer home in that place because I love it so much) to Progreso Veracruz, Veracruz. Which means that I am in the ghetto section of the city of Veracruz, and all I will say is that Santiago may have been poorer, but they really did not show it like they do here in this section of the city. My house, lets just say is basically borderline inconsistent with our calling(the bathroom has no roof, and there is no shower), that said, I really have treasured the chance that this has given me to grow here. Like I really really enjoy getting to experience a new trial and become a different person from living in pretty poor conditions. Another thing, never ever ever ever pray to not receive someone as a a companion, first off you will definitely receive them, second off, you might get along with them better than you think. I did that my first transfer about my current companion, and they just put me with that guy (I swear that God really has quite the sense of humor). With that in mind, I am getting along with my companion wel enough, its not a divine companionship, but we each do what we have to according to the others likes and dislikes. They say that each companion tries to teach you something about your future wife, if that is the case, I had better start with some yoga because I will need to be super flexible. My new area is gigantic, like I cannot describe how big it is and I am just talking about the area I work in. I could not run from one side to the other, and remember in mexico it is all walking. My companions former companion just finished his mission (we say he died) so he kind of stoppped caring about this transfer, which means that we have no one really to work with right now, which is awesome. I´ve been pushing my companion really hard to go contacting more, it isbashed on a ton by so many people, but I have found my absolute best investigators just through sheer pounding the 
pavement work. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the conference, I loved it, and it was wonderful. I wish
 I could write more, but out of time, loveyou all,

Elder Standridge