May 11, 2015

Well family and freinds, This week has been such a great week. Well I first want to talk about mothers day! I was so happy to see and talk to my family through skype! I love them all and miss them so much!!! The truth is, I couldnt speak english very well, I kept speaking spanish because It was easier haha, I fet like I couldnt speak very well english hahaha. but I did get to talk spanish with my dad! wow! words can not explain! I felt closer to my dad more then ever and  had tears in my eyes. It is such a wonderful blessing to learn spanish and be able to talk to people. thank you dad. This week we will be getting another missionary that will work with us, we will be in a trio, his name is Elder Garcia, he was working in the altos but I think he had problems with his feets, so he will be working with us for a bit of time, im exited(: our family basques that we are teaching are exited and are learnign very well(: we should be having a bautims in a few weeks(: I love you all so very much! have a great week( Love Elder Portlock

The ruins of Chiapa de Corzo

A Mexican graveyard

The ruins of Chiap de Corzo

Ruins of Chiapa de Corzo

an old abandoned Catholic church

The old church

The colonies of chiapa de corzo

Chiapa de corzo

Chiapa de corzo

Whooooooo!  I reciveda package from my family!

Going to Cintalapa again.  I really like Cintalapa.  It's awesome.  It's one hour away from Tuxtla.

Digging a hole to help

My countdown chart at home

Talking to my family

My zone

May 4, 2015

I would like to share a bit of what I believe. I believe In God our Heavenly Father. We are his children. Before this earth we all lived together in a world called the spirit world. All of us lived together and loved one another. God our father spoke to us and asked us if we are happy, we all spoke at once in confusion. ¨ I think so?¨but we weren't sure, we didn't even know what happy meant. God said that he has a plan for us, we would all come to earth and obtain a body so that we could progress. He also gave us our free agency to choose right from wrong, left or right. God also said that he would give us a savior, someone who would pay the price for all of our sins and difficulties in life. 2 of our brothers spoke the first one said ¨send me, It is your will¨ the second one said ´´send me, I will make everyone choose the same thing and everyone will return to you. God said I will send the first. With that the first brother became our savior and was called the Christ. The second one got angry and took 1 third of our brothers with him and was thrown out and would not receive bodies, he was called Satan. God said to all of us that we would have difficulties but he knew we would all be able to find our way back to him. Here we are in this life, we are here to learn the principles and covenants that will help us get back to god, this is what the gospel is, a path that we can and need to take. We learn to have faith in things that we may  not see but we believe. We learn our to repent of things that may not have been very good to change us and to have a better knowledge of things. And we make sacred convents or promises with god to help us in this path. Being here on the mission I have had the opportunity to help other people remember and to know our plan here. I have literally seen people change their lives and find a lot of happiness through faith and true repentance. I have been able to see miracles as I speak with the gift of tongues and teach people in a new language. I have been able to find people who were just waiting to here the gospel and accept it the moment we opened up our mouths. I have a testimony of what I'm doing and I know that I was pre ordained to be here and preach the gospel. My invitation for you all is to pray and ask your father in heaven for guidance and what you need to change or do in your life. And then serve your fellow being. We are not here to be served but to serve. I am only 19 years and I'm still young, I am nothing without god, he is my strength  in all things. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen. 

for my mom

haha

We met one of the seventy!

I thought Melissa would like this

hahaha

A cool short parade

got to work with Elder Lemus for a day.

whooo

April 27, 2015
Hey family and friends, this week has been such a great week! We have a little girl we are teaching named Estrella , she has 9 years and she is exited to get baptized, she goes to church with a friend of her mom, her mom is not a member and doesn't want to talk to us but she said if Estrella wants to get baptized she can, also we have a family of 3, the Basquez family, she has a son on a mission but never wanted to get baptized, she started visiting the missionaries and they started to teach her and her family the lessons, they are awesome and I love them so much! We should be have a baptism in about one month(:also this week we were teaching Uvenzo and Maria De Jesus, we were reading Alma 32 and learning about faith, they loved that chapter and they have so much faith! We were also teaching them about missionary work and that they can help other people and invite them to listen to us, Sister Maria De Jesus told us that she was talking to her neighbor the other day and invited her to listen to us! Her neighbor said that she is a member but inactive, but she would like to talk to us. So right after the lesson we went to visit her. As we started to talk she broke out in tears and said that 3 members of her family died recently and she has also made covenants in the temple and she felt bad that she had been inactive. She told us that a few days ago she had been thinking a lot about the church and  about returning to church and then we showed up! She was very grateful that we showed up and the next day she was at church and cried and she took the sacrament. I feel really blessed to be able  to help people. My testimony has strengthened a lot the 10 months that I have here in Mexico(: I hope every one else is doing well(: I love you  all  Elder Portlock 

Eating smoothies

Eating Pizza

My district

The chili I ate.  It was amazing! 

Ha ha!  This is classic!

Woooo!  The clouds

A weird bug

April 20, 2015
Hello family and friends! this week we had transfers, Elder Gonzalez finished his mission and is now home. My New companion is........Elder Gamboa! He is really tall haha! He is from the state of Chiuaua in Mexico. He has 1 year in the mission and he is exited to be here in Tuxtla, this is his 4th area and his 1st area in Tuxtla. His last companion that he has was Elder De Leon. (who is a friend form Riverton High!) haha I thought that was awesome that Elder Gamboa now has two companions from the same city. This week nothing really exiting passed, just lots of work and lots of contacts. We're raising our goal of contacts to 140 every week. I know with the dedication that we renew every day we will be able to reach our goals. Also this week we had a referral from a member, she has a son on his mission in the same mission as the members son. And he wanted that his family to meet and talk with the missionaries. So we are now teaching his family and they accepted to be taught. I hope that everything will go well.  I hope everyone back at home is doing well (: Con amor Elder Portlock

My last day with Elder Gonzalez

Elder Gamboa

April 13, 2015
Well family and friends another week has passed and I'm glad to be able to write home again(: well this week I want to start with the mission changes! well Elder Gonzalez is going home(: he completed his mission and is very happy, I'm also very happy for him. I'm going to be zone leader number 1 here and Elder Gamboa is going to be my new companion, I don't know him at all. haha  He will come tomorrow so I will have to let you know about him the next week. I hope things will be good(: I learned a lot of things with Elder Gonzalez and I'm going to  miss him a lot!!! Also this week Maria de Jesus got baptized and she is very happy! I too am very happy! I feel very blessed to have helped a family come into the church and be faithful haha, I will always remember this time and will always keep in touch with them(: I want to write more but I have a busy day today and tomorrow helping all the missionaries with there changes(: I love you all take care(:

                                                    Elder Portlock

Planning for our training meeting

Trust Fall

My zone

 

Haha!  Ya...

The bird is watching Spongebob

My District

A really hot day.  We are sweating!

Haha.  His name is Rango.

Finding Nemo!

 

April 6, 2015

Dear family and friends, Well this week was great! We started it off with a big conference of all the zone leaders in the mission. We learned alot of things and made a lot of great plans(: I love the big meetings because I get to see alot of missionaries in the other parts of the mission(: on Wednesday we had our meeting with the zone, it went very well and we also made some great plans that we will be carrying out this month. On Thursday we had the baptism of Luis Angel (Chiki) haha he was SO happy this day haha also the water was really low so when he went under the water he hit his butt on the ground hahaha(: but he is fine. On Friday we had splits with  the assistants. I went with the legendary Elder Ibarra haha and we had a good day of doing a lot of stuff in the offices, at 6 we left the office to work.  Later in the night we passed a girl crying on the side of the street. We started to talk to her and she wasn't very nice to us, but we sat down to her so we could talk to her. I'm not gonna say much about her but she has a TON of problems. After we gave her our number and told her that we would like to talk to her again. She said thank you and we left. Wow there's a lot of sad things in the world. And I can testify that the Gospel of Jesus Christ that has been restored brings a lot of happiness and joy!. Annnnd on Saturday and Sunday was General conference! WHOOOOO I love it so much!  I also enjoyed seeing people that I know singing in the choir(: I also enjoyed President Monson's talk in the priesthood session, he talked about the mission manual. haha it really does come in handy when you need to give a blessing! haha (: I always have it in my pocket at all times! I hope that all of you at home enjoyed this week(: I love you all(: Elder Portlock

President George

Elder Gonzalez's broken shoe

Where I hang my clothes  haha

The church plaque

The baptism of Luis Angle (Chiki)

Mangos  (:

Making Tortillas  WHOOO  (: