September 15, 2014

Well WOW! where to start, There was so much that went on this week I don´t even think Ill get all of it on here, but oh well,

I guess Ill start with the GOOD NEWS! on Friday we were in a lesson with Mauricio and we felt like he was ready for baptism so we pulled out the baptismal Interviews and went through all of them, And he seemed to have such a great testimony it was amazing! He had read ALL the lessons and marked them up, He is already in 3rd Nephi with a colorful Libro De Mormon and he reads other material on gospel library, wow! I haven't seen so much improvement is someone, well during our conversation with him we invited him to be baptized tomorrow on Saturday, he gladly accepted and we made plans for a baptism on Sat. at 2, because it was on such short notice only 4 missionaries were there and the bishop and the elders quorum president, Mauricio was very exited! Well the Best part is that he asked me to baptize him! Well I did just that and it was amazing! My first personal baptism here! WOW Mauricio is definitely the Golden Investigator, He is very happy and keeps texting us saying that he is filled with the spirit always! Its amazing and makes me feel Gods love. The other day we were walking with Mauricio, and the guy who wanted to kill us the other week walked past us, and Mauricio started to tell me that he feels scared for us but also that he knows that we're safe because we have God on our side. WOW haha he impresses me all the time! The next happiest thing this week is that Alejandro received the Aaronic Priesthood this Sunday. WOW he has changed the most and you can see it, he just radiates with the light of Christ. Before, he was sad about things and was very nervous about baptism and didn't know a thing about us, now its almost like he understands the church very well and he is always happy! He told me that he really wants to serve a mission now, wow! I am just filled with happiness this week. Also he really considers me Family and calls me his Brother in English(: he said after my mission he wants to visit me and learn language and study at BYU, Well I really hope those plans work out! Well My first camibos this Monday.  Sunday night Elder Muñoz and I were very anxious about the call from the district leader telling us the plans, well the call finally came and we're still companions! WHOOOO! haha I'm very exited! And Elder Muñoz is the new District leader so lots of good news, wow! This is Elder Muñoz last 6 weeks of his mission! I really want to make this last 6 weeks of his mission count and, we're gonna work super hard! The language is still coming very slow but I'm starting to pick up and a few more words so its very exiting for me. 

 Have fun back at home I miss ya tons! Ill write more next week(:

 

 

Farewell, Hermana

Food at member's house, annnnd a typical morning desayuno, HOTCAKES  :D

This has probably been the best soup I have EVER eaten.....(besides my mom's (:  )

We had to cross this "rapid river".  We finally found a way where we had to jump for our lives and trip into the green spiky weeds.  haha

We were passing the big Futbol stadium and found the big...face.

I love my companion!

Best Baptism EVER!

I love my companion!

Receiving inspiration on what to do next  (:

Sept. 8, 2014

Well this week Ill think Ill start of by answering the questions my mom asked.

1.The weather report said that there was a hurricane north of where you are.  I am sure that has affected the weather? Well I didn't know there was a Hurricane??? but there was one night that was had the biggest thunder and rain, that was probably the night, wow the rain came down like bullets, but i enjoyed it tons, the houses here don't have closed houses so a bit of rain got in the house and It was super loud and it seemed like the sky never was dark cause of the lighting.

2. did you ever buy a rain jacket? and no i haven't. the missionaries said the best jackets are back at home. But right now i don't need it, Ill only need it in San Cristobal and I'm not there right now, so we'll see how things turn out(:

3.What is it like to go grocery shopping? well its pretty much the same, there's a Walmart here in the center of the city so we get most our food there. other than that pretty much every other house here is a small store where people sell stuff for there job so when we need spaghetti or cereal or other small stuff through out the week were covered. Haha we eat pretty poor here because we don't have a lot of money but that OK, pretty much we eat spaghetti every night and pancakes in the morning haha.

4.What is different there compared to here? well......... i don't think I really say much because EVERYTHING is different. its just ...different haha that's all I can say about this question.

5.What do you miss most from home? I just miss my family, running in the morning with my father, my mothers food, mowing the lawn( OK , I don't know why but I really miss mowing the lawn!) 

6.What do you do for laundry?  Do you do laundry by hand, or do you have machines? Well it really depends, the lady that we live above happens to have a washing machine, but we rarely use it cause we're really limited on water here, so we usually wash out clothes by hand which takes forever and I do not like!

7. Do you ever get to go to the temple? Well i haven't yet.... I think only if our recent converts go through.

8. And dad wants to know if you are going to buy a hammock to sleep on. no, Here in my area the hammocks cost a lot of money, but the missionaries here say that the best  place to buy hammocks are in Oaxaca. so for now no.

             OK now for some other stuff, haha well Our Investigator Alejandro got baptized and confirmed! it was the best part about this week! We had been working with him since I got here and he is awesome! He considers me family and calls me his brother! He is 18 years old and is just an awesome guy! haha after he was baptized he gave me his ring as a present and gratitude. oh! and the best part that really touched me is when he came out of the water he just stood there and paused and looked like he was completely FILLED with happiness! the two of us are definitely gonna write for a long time! haha I've also been teaching him a little bit of English(: oh, also in fast and testimony meeting today I bore my testimony about the importance of testimonies, haha I did way better than I thought even though It wasn't much and the grammar, well I'm not gonna go there haha but after all the members came up to me and said thank you because you brought the spirit into the room. This week I've really been focusing on this one scripture in Mosiah 7:12, pretty much was it says is anything that is good comes from god and anything this isn't good comes from the devil. this has helped me out so much! When I start feeling sad because whenever your sad or don't want to do anything, turn that feeling upside down and be happy because you can, you can make any moment better if you just make it. The Language , well yes its still hard, I've found that I'm getting a bit better at reading but i still can't understand anyone here which is hard, my goal in the mission and my life is to always be happy and always turn a bad moment into a good moment. haha well i don't know what more to say haha but ill write more next week.

Love Elder Portlock

 

P-Day fun

Combies

well that food was yummy and gross at the same time, m serious when i say this, but it seems like they just take the fish and shrimp and crabs and what ever else they put in and cook it whole, That soup had EYE balls floating in it! and fish heads with the eye balls still attached! it was a puzzle trying to eat the food with small little bones every where! haha

ALEJANDRO!!!

P-Day

 

 Wow!  This week was crazy!

Well to start of with the letter I'm gonna say the scary stuff first! Well on Tuesday we were at our investigator Mauricio (who speaks English and is progressing very well) and he told us about somebody that was found in the bushes near his house. It was in the news paper and he gave us a copy, well just a mile or less from our house a skeleton was found on Sunday, which is very scary! Some places here is very dangerous, which leads so the next scary thing that happened! We were heading to another investigators house, Diana, when we got there we saw her father who is a very good friend of ours and another guy we didn't know. I reached out my hand to say hello and he didn't shake my hand, instead he shook his head and made the catholic cross sign. He said some things that I didn't understand (which I never understand anything anyways haha) but he was holding a long screw driver and holding it in a threatening way, I had no idea what was going on cause it caught me by surprise, Elder Muñoz immediately sat next to him and did some kind of martial arts move and took the screw driver right out of his hands and said, "Tranquilo! Somos misieoneros! ( chill, we are missionariess) the man stood up like he was about to hit us and Elder Muñoz said "Corra!" which meant "run!" We quickly left the area! A few minutes later we stopped, my heart was pounding very hard and I was super scared, the thing that scared me most was that Elder Muñoz was scared and shaking. Wow! I asked him what the guy said and Elder Muñoz said "nos iva a matar" apparently the guy wanted to kill us! Wow we took the screw driver to a member and told them what happened. I'm just happy I'm alive haha! The sad thing is that we can never go back to the house, we had to drop our investigator right there. During the time we were there when the man was about to attack us I felt the power of Satan very strong, the area and the man was under Satan's power, I could feel it and Elder Muñoz agrees. Oh and one more weird thing, the other day we got a ride from a member to an investigator and on the way there, there was this super old lady holding big rocks and was screaming at us while throwing the rocks at us! HAHA it was the weirdest thing I had ever seen! I'm just glad I was in the car and not walking! Some other cool stuff is that it rained while we were outside, it usually rains everyday around 2 for about 10 minutes, but this day it rained and rained all day! and wow! Since the place here is FULL of up and down hills, ALL the streets literally turned into rivers! haha I've never seen so much water in my life! Well we put our bags in a black trash bag and marched our way up the street/river and walked to our investigator, well one night we were just about finishing our day when we needed to make our last 10 contacts for the day, every last contact was catholic and DID not want to hear our message, it was very weird, we made our way home when there was big catholic parties going on in the middle of the street. It seemed like to me that we were the only Mormons in the city! (which of course is not true) but as we were walking I was holding the Book of Mormon, and I turned to Elder Muñoz and bore my testimony about the book and said some people are just not ready to hear our message, I said that we just need to find the people who are ready, the next day we made a visit with a contact for the first time, during it he accepted everything we said and wanted to read the Book of Mormon! Wow the spirit was so strong and he accepted to be baptized the next month! It was a very amazing visit that I won't ever forget, I'm very exited to see him in our next visit. This week we had another baptism, it was another investigator that I didn't really teach much cause I'm new but it was still very exiting! Some other good stuff was I finally talked to Hermana Allen from the blog. She was exited to hear that her mom was posting stuff haha. Well family and friends I love ya lots! And I miss ya lots, there's been lots of sad things here and also some very great things.  Well I'm gonna go for now, and Ill send pics to my mom so she can put them on the blog. Wow there's so much to write and not enough time so unfortunately I don't have time to write everything else, Ill continue to give you all some stuff each week. Love, Elder Portlock

The screw driver that almost killed us!

This is the skeleton that was in the newspaper, found very close to our house.

A weird tree

Our zone

Aug. 25, 2014
HERE IN TUXTLA GUTIERREZ AGUILAS

WOW this week has flown by super faast! I feel like like I just typed yesterday. Well some of these things I have to say are the same, some days are really hard and some days are amazing! It is really hard for Elder Muñoz and I to communicate and it gets really stressful at times. I had the opportunity to go on splits with the district leader who is Elder Jimenez and he speaks English so it was so helpful! I was able to ask him questions that I had that Elder Muñoz couldn't answer. I stayed at his house for the night, haha the bed didn't have a frame so I pretty much slept on the floor which was not fun... there were a few ants here and there that would crawl on my sheets and I would feel them at night and it was very annoying! Well I am starting to get used to the bugs here and the houses. I feel so blessed that I have a family at home who has a nice home because it is SO different here. Well with David who said he saw me in a dream is doing good, were still teaching him and he is making good progress. With Nuria who didn't want to come to church is doing better! We talked to her and helped her grow her faith back, she is now confirmed and is coming to church which is such a blessing!  We have many investigators that we are teaching but I'm only putting the ones that are making the best progress. Well with Mauricio, he was a contact that we got who when we went to his house he was super exited that we came, he so many questions and what ever we told him he just got so exited, and the best part! he speaks English! Mauricio is 22 years old and he lives by himself with a little dog who likes my shoe.... a little to much, the dog thinks my shoe is a girl dog...... well anyways Mauricio came to church and we sat with him after he was exited to go to the other classes and after that he just followed us to our other meetings and than to our investigator later that day, he was with us all Sunday which I was able to teach him tons of stuff, we have become really great friends and he told me that he likes to be with us and likes it when we come over to his house because he feels happy when we're there, he says it just feels lighter and he wants that in his life. Well I'v had lots of great times but also hard times, I'm struggling with the language a ton and I cant speak it with is really frustrating. I also wont be able to upload pictures today because the computer I am using doesn't have a slot for memory cards, so next week I'll post pictures.  I'm  glad to hear that things are going good at home, and with the rain haha it rains here too everyday but not for long. Well friends and family I love you all and I miss you a ton! The mission is hard but it is also a learning experience. I'm happy that our lord has given me this opportunity to be here in Mexico with these people who don't have much. Its also really important to count your blessing and always remember that through the atonement of our savior our problems and hard trials can be healed. I´v seen it happen here and I experience it all the time. I love you all and keep me updated.  -Love Elder Portlock

 Aug. 19th

Hola Familia and Friends!

Ok! where to start! haha Well this week has been great! With ups and downs, to start of I'm writing today because we were having a big activity with all the missionaries in the Tuxtla area, we all went to Zoomat! It was awesome and there were lots of animals I had never seen before and the spiders! Holy cow! I would never want to see them in my house or yard! This week I got sick and I don't know what my body was doing! But during the day my stomach started to feel sick so we went home and as soon as I got home I started to throw up a ton! It was not fun! Then the next morning I was on the toilet for 30 min! with the runs! (sorry if I'm creating nasty pictures, but its the truth) I was miserable. haha.  I'm laughing about it now cause I feel fine now. I think it was the chicken I ate, we were at a investigators house and they gave me some nastly looking chicken that was cold but I ate it anyways cause I didn't want to be rude. There are so many bugs here! haha I always have to shake out my clothes and shoes before putting them on cause there's always bugs or spiders that like to say hi to me......some days I feel like I'm not progressing at all and they are very rough! The language is very difficult to speak but I have been learning a lot about patience here! My Spanish has improved though and when it does I get super happy! haha. My reading skills have been getting better but I still don't understand a thing! It's very frustrating! I have my first baptism here! it didn't feel very special to me though cause I didn't teach her anything, Elder Muñoz taught her before I came, but it was still awesome! The sad and devastating news was that the next day she called and said she didn't want to got to church any more! WHAT?? She said she didn't like the baptismal service, oh well, its sad because baptism is the gate... Well I'll still pray for her and visit and hope that she will change her mind. The area that I am in is so poor! WOW! And the other missionaries here say it gets even more poor in Tapachula and next to the coast, well there was one area where the houses were little shacks made out of metal boards! and Elder Muñoz and I crossed this giant water tube that stretched across a river! It was awesome and scary at the same time, if we misplaced our feet we would fall to our death, but I'm alive and here typing so no worries haha. I love talking to the kids down here! I can't speak very well and they think its hilarious! But they love to talk and learn English from me. Elder Muñoz and I are doing great, we get along with each other really well, but we can't hardly communicate which is really funny! Oh! And we were at a members house eating lunch and after we sung a hymn with them, after the hymn I wanted to say that this hymn we sung is not in the English hymn, hahah but what I really said was "this mosquito is not in the English hymn!" hahaha, The family and my companion had a  good laugh, haha well I finally met up with Hermana Hickman, I talked to her at the zoo and I told her I had been looking at her blog before the mission and told her how exited I was because of the stories she had and the pictures. it was great! Well I'll go for now and I can't wait to write back next week! Adios!

Elder Portlock

 

The crazy pipe bridge

Food

These spiders are everywhere

 

August 11, 2014
Hola Familia!
Hello, I hope all is well back home, its been such a great week! Very different for sure! I have definitely had a lot of culture shock here! Well Monday was crazy! We all stayed at the mission home with tons of elders! There were 10 new missionaries that were native and then all the new trainers came over so in the upstairs room we all slept there. The first night I didn't even get a pillow or anything to sleep with! I found a little bed with no sheets and just layed on it till the next morning, We didn't have enough time to get ready for bed. The next morning we had 30 min. to grab our stuff and head to down stairs where we had a lot of instruction. I didn't know anything! Haha, it was all in Spanish! After instruction I got my new companion and my new area! My new companion is Elder Muñoz! He is from Ecuador and he doesn't speak English at all! Its extremely hard to communicate! But it's also fun! We left instantly to our new area, we are in Tuxta Agilas, its not in the main city its off to the side. Wow! I've never seen a place like this before! Its so poor here! And most of the roads are all dirt rocky, and there's up and down hills everywhere! After we got to the apartment we put our stuff down and went to work. We stopped at this house and started teaching the family, I don't understand at all what people are saying and I can't even talk! But I can bare a simple testimony of what we're talking about. It's not much but it seems like its very effective. Wow! I am loving it here! It's very difficult to get used to because I am not used to this place and this kind of living. (mom and dad, thank you SO much for providing so much for me! haha!)  well on Sunday, we had one of our investigators come to church his name is D.... I hadn't seen him before cause he was taught before I came. But when he greeted me he froze and then told me " I believe in God, I'm Baptist, its hard for me to believe in Joseph Smith, but before you missionaries came to my house I had a dream with you in it, you're the missionary in my dream!" He wants to learn more and its awesome! So I sat with him during sacrament and Elder Muñoz sat with another investigator. During sacrament he pulled out his iphone and we talked though google translate and I was teaching him the entire time! It was amazing! ...One day we were eating lunch at a members house and we started to hear a lot of noise outside, I didn't understand what was going on but the members were telling me to move over to the other side of the house and stay there, afterwards they said a big fight was going on and they didn't want me to get hurt! It was crazy, Oh! and there are dogs EVERY where, they are all stray dogs and they don't touch people because they are used to humans, and if anything, the people throw rocks at them, its pretty sad. ... well the showers here are cold , and the water barley comes out of the faucet.  It's very different here! And the traffic. Wow. I feel like I'm going to die every time I get in a taxi or combi (combi is a small bus that a thousands of people all get in at once, its full!) And it seems like there is no such thing as a seat belt or traffic laws, people speed and maneuver their way through the streets as they please. The people here are way nice! And all my investigators so far really want to learn English so I try to teach them some. Most of the lessons we have I don't say much haha! And I barley understand but the people understand and help me. haha. I am seriously the biggest gringo haha! Not only are we missionaries who wear white shirts but I'm American with blonde hair, I stick out very well here. Wow! Lots have gone on and I wish I could say more but I need to hurry up.

This is so crazy here mom! I miss ya like crazy and sometimes I wish that I could come back home... but I know this is where I'm supposed to be and I have faith. I do love the people here and I love this experience. It's awesome! I'm really experiencing living poor here is such a poor house! The people here barley have anything! It's so sad, well tell the family hi for me! 

Well family I miss you tons! And I think about you all the time, Living here really makes me grateful for the house I have, the family I have, and the things I have. I am living on very little here! I love you all, stay strong and Ill talk to you all next week

Lots of love! Elder Portlock

 

My house

This was a huge cockroach! it was flying around the house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mi casa

An average road

 

Hola Familia

Well, I have arrived here in Mexico Tuxtla Gutierrez!  Wow, what a day.  First off, I don't have a lot of time to say everything because I need to get ready for bed now.  Next week I'll be able to write more.  But this place is crazy!  Wow!  Huge culture shock!  And the drivers here are crazy and people don't have rules here.  They drive where ever they want, they walk wherever they please.  The streets are filled with people trying to sell you stuff.  When we first arrived, the president was there along with the AP's.  We then went to Walmart and got food for dinner.  At dinner we had some good taquitos that were very tasty.  There were a lot of elders and they all speak Spanish and only Spanish.  There were about 5 gringos that were all fluent.  And then there's Elder Rowland and I, the only English speakers.  Ha ha.  It was hard trying to talk to people.  I get my new companion tomorrow, and my first assigned area tomorrow.  So I'll let you know how things are next Monday on p-day.  I love you all and take care.  I know with our Savior Jesus Christ we can all get through trials we face in life.  Hasta luego!

Love, Elder Portlock