Travel to La Paz; Life in the Mission Office; More Pics!

January 11, 2015

Hi Everyone:

Again I don’t have a lot of time to write! Crazy p-day but I’ll put all the important stuff! Being an AP is chill. We pick up the new missionaries from the airport and eat breakfast with them and give them a brief overview of the mission, and we also get to eat dinner with President and his wife and all the missionaries that are leaving that change. It’s pretty awesome. We prepare leadership trainings for the zone leaders and sister leaders, and general multi zone meetings. 

Well I’ll finally get my chance to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth when we go to Cabo in 2 weeks. I’m excited for that. It would have been awesome to have had an area there but that’s okay. I love Culiacan. My comp is E. Ramos. He’s from Chiapas (the southern most part of Mexico). He’s awesome and hilarious and we get along really well. It’s really exhausting being an AP. 

But I’m glad that I have a great comp. He’s always pulling pranks and making jokes. It’s awesome to have a comp like that! 

All day Sunday we just go to church, and then from 4 to 10:45 at night we call all the ZLs and ask for their numbers and check every companionship in the mission and how they’re doing, etc. It’s pretty exhausting. Last night I was talking to the last zone and was super tired, so I just said "Elder, its late just tell me the most important things about each companionship and what’s keeping them from baptizing" ahha but it’s a cool experience. Also we do lots of splits with all the other missionaries. 

We are only in the offices for like 2 days a week – Sunday and then half the day Wednesday when we have our weekly meeting with President to tell him about the mission etc., so we get a good amount of time to work in our area. Our area is literally were the richest people in all of Culiacan live. Every single house is enormous and has its own individual design. 

We only have 6 members in our area which are the 4 new converts and President and his wife. It’s pretty cool because president comes with us to teach lessons and does his visiting teaching there. Kinda weird to be walking in the street and see president knocking on a door and contacting in the street ahah. I’ll send you pictures of the houses in my area. One has a huge water slide it looks more like a part of six flags than a house.

We’re teaching an awesome family, Yubal and Ana Iris. They’re awesome. I actually knew them before and we get a long really well. They’re most likely our next baptisms that we’ll have. And our new converts are all super awesome. I really like our area. It’s pretty tough but we always have like miracle baptisms that come out of nowhere. 

Things are great. I laughed super hard at that story you told me about Jace and Joe ahah. I can’t believe he thought of that so fast. Umm I have internet access so I could probably do it here. I’ll have to ask Pte Velez. I won’t be driving :( but that’s okay. Well, I got to go!!! Thanks for writing!!!

Love you guys

E. Latimer

January 18, 2015

Dear All:

This week was pretty great. Yubal came to church and we put a baptismal date for the 30th of January. So were excited about that. He’s really awesome and I think he´ll be able to get baptized really soon. I’ll have to take some pictures of the houses in our area because they’re huge. We’ll have to come back some day so I can show you my areas. 

We had an awesome experience. We taught a lesson with Pres Velez. A random lady showed up to church and came into gospel principles class. And for the first time (that I’ve ever seen) Pres Velez came to our ward with his wife. It’s really where they should attend but President always goes and visits the branches where he presides. Anywho, he starts talking to her and says to us "Elders, stay with me and my wife were gonna teach a lesson".

So we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was pretty great. Then we taught her baptism. And Pres Velez is a great teacher he asks really inspired questions and teaches with a lot of power. But after this process of dozens of inspired questions and teaching her about baptism, he challenged her. He gave her Alma 7: 14-15 to read and he had her stand up and read it. 

And there’s a part in those verses towards the end that says "and testify today that you are willing to obey the commandments and be baptized" (something like that, I know it better in Spanish). Then he asks her "so when should you get baptized?" and she says "today...." then he says "are you willing to be baptized.... today?" I sat there with my companion in awe. I really thought for a minute we were gonna start filling up the font! But then she said she’d like to learn a little bit more, so the sister missionaries are gonna teach her. But we were sooo close to having a miracle baptism Sunday. ahah It was great. 

It was really awesome to teach with President. It was a great lesson and afterwards she said that she felt really peaceful and at home while we taught her. I wish I could write down everything that happened but it was like an hour long lesson so I’m not going to ahha. 

This week were going to La Paz, hopefully well head down to Cabo also. It’s like an hour away, put La Paz is really awesome too I’ve heard. The good thing is ill get to go 2 more times I think, before I go home.

Also our neighbors are Canadian and have tons of tattoos and smoke all the time and are always fighting and don’t speak Spanish. And they have this annoying cat that makes the ugliest sounds, it always meows like its giving birth to an elephant. 

But the cat today climbed up near our balcony and wouldn’t shut up so my companion starts squirting it with a water bottle and it got scared, jumped down like 15 feet and crashed into their table and knocked over this huge metal can where they put their cigarette butts and fell on the floor ahahhaha. We almost died laughing. Then they came out and saw the huge mess it made and started getting angry at one another. ahhaha We may have destroyed their marriage... 

We didn’t have the courage to tell them it was us, but I’m okay with that hahaha. Then the cat started moaning in pain. hahha I think my comp may have killed it, but we’ll see tonight i guess if it keeps meowing. 

Things are great. I need to write more in my journal though because we almost never have time to. Also we played soccer today with a bunch of elders and I got hit in the groin pretty bad for the first time in like 2 years and my stomach still hurts. I bought a new suit for like 90 bucks, because the dollar is now worth almost 20 pesos. So I’m pretty happy, 

I think I got taller in the mission because the other suit I had was really small on me and the sleeves were really short. 

Mom I read that talk you sent me by Elder Anderson it was great! And I’d like to go skiing with you guys. I just don’t want to be gone for too long though. Sounds like everyone is doing great! And I’d like to live with Joe and Tyler. That’s a bummer that the Seahawks lost. Hopefully next year. I’m super happy and having a lot of fun so time is flying by. I’ll see you guys soon! Only 10 weeks left! 

Elder Latimer

January 27, 2015

Dear Everyone:

This week was great. We had 2 leadership conferences so it was only zone leaders and sister leaders. We had one in Culiacan, then right afterwards we left to La Paz! It’s a short plane trip like 15 minutes they literally turn off the "fasten seatbelt" sign and give you peanuts then they turn it back on, and we start our descent. La Paz is super awesome! It’s so peaceful so it deserves its name, a really small city, but I loved it. 

We did divisiones with some Elders and then went and ate dinner with President and his wife. They slept in the hotel room right next to ours, but it was hilarious because they were like, "good night elders!," and we said good night too, then they went into their room. But my companion looks at me, shakes his head and starts pointing at the stairway outside. So we go outside and go all the way to the top of this hotel where you see the ocean and the whole city. It was awesome! The worst part is that I left my camera in president’s car :(. We were only there for like 24 hours.)

But the good thing is I get to go 2 more times before I finish the mission! Also I get to go to Mazatlan! But something said is that I told president I had never left Culiacan, and he was all surprised and said "Are you serious?" ahah. Then later in the leadership conference he was talking about rules for going to the beach, and he said, "You’re lucky you have a beach nearby. Some have never even gone! Like Elder Latimer! I didn’t know he had never left Culiacan, but if he would have asked me I would have sent him over!" Ooh. That one hurt bad. haha If I had just asked I would have been a zone leader in Cabo! But I trusted too much in that nonsense of "I’ll go where you want me to go." ahhaha Just kidding. 

But the conference was great, President got really into it and was telling story from the Old Testament, where King Saul goes to the witches to ask for their advice and he disguises himself. So as he’s telling it, and he lifts up his suit jacket and covers his face and keeps telling the story as if he were King Saul. It was hilarious. He stayed like that for like 5 minutes! I loved it. 

Also he was telling everyone it’s okay if you like another sister missionary or elder, etc., and how its normal and we just should keep it to ourselves, etc. Then he like looks this sister missionary dead in the eye and says very seriously "Sister so and so... is there anything wrong with liking an elder?" And the poor sister just sits there not knowing what to say. Then president laughs and says "OF COURSE NOT!" ahhaha. I love president. He’s hilarious. He’s even funnier now because he’s finishing his mission so he’s getting a little trunky ahah. Not really. He and his wife are gonna be normal missionaries after this. 

This week was really busy. We didn’t get to teach hardly anyone. President had us go to some sisters’ baptism because he couldn’t make it and other stuff so we didn’t to get work too much in our area. And yesterday we were in the offices all day asking for numbers and doing reports. Then at 11 at night we had to go to the airport and pick up an elder who was gonna renew his visa, and he slept at our house so we were up really late. BUT were having lots of fun so I’m not complaining!

Also, I gave a talk Sunday and basically just taught everyone the restoration, and we went to a family’s house to eat after church and they made soooo much food. There were soo many leftovers they made us and our ward mission leader take home like 12 pounds of food each! ahah So we don’t have to go shopping this week. 

Dad, that’s really interesting about Lehi’s dream. My comp is from Chiapas and there’s lots of ruins there, and he showed me a picture of a tablet slab that’s in a museum that they found in Chiapas, and it depicts a tree of life, people getting lost in fog, and an iron rod. Also in the pyramids near his house there’s a spot on top where if you speak everyone in the valley can hear you, so he thinks that’s were King Benjamin gave his sermon. 

Lots of cool stuff. We’re having lots of fun here. Yubal is reading the Book of Mormon so we hope he gets baptized this week. It’s been a struggle getting him to read but we finally downloaded the gospel library app and now he’s reading like crazy. Hopes are high! All is well in Zion.

E. Latimer