June 6, 2016

Well in this week we have had a pretty nice time trying to find new investigators. We are still in the process. We have had a Stake Conference with President George and also President Benjamin De Hoyos, the president of the church here in Mexico. It was a great conference.  They talked a lot about the importance of members helping in the mission work and also about the faith. I truly enjoyed the talks. I have a few scriptures they used but I can’t remember them.  They are all written in a book back at my house that I had forgotten at the house. Then something quite different happened after the conference. On Sunday President George called us and offered to take my companion Elder Stewart and I here to Tuxtla, to try to save a little money on traveling, so we had quite a fine time to talk together for 6 hours in the car (:  President George is a very honorable man and I am very grateful for all of his inspiration for us here in the mission. We are now in Tuxtla and we will be here for my last zone leader conference and then we will be traveling back to Tapachula on Wednesday. Well we will be visiting a few of my old members and converts in Las Agulas today so I will be looking forward to that. And then tomorrow. Oh! And also this week and the next week we have Elder and Sister Yañez living with us, they are using these weeks to check all the houses in Tapachula, its super fun to have them over!!! Sometimes they make us food (: they made flour tortillas the other day and it reminded me of my mom’s tortillas (: yummm! 

Well I’ll see everyone home in a week and a half!!! Love ya all so much!

 Elder Portlock

 

These are the baptisms in Comalapa.  Wow!  They were my investigators, and they are now baptized.  It makes me super happy.

My watch tan line

My stuff got a bit wet.  haha

Here's a bit of Mexican money if you wanted to see.

 

We made dinner with the Matrimonio Yanez

My study table.

Our friend Dariel

This is from when Elder Oaks came.

May 30, 2016

Well this week we have decided to go and leave all of our investigators that are not progressing and to try to receive some references. The funny thing about the members is that they love to just give less active members as references and not just their friends and family that are not members... So we have ended up visiting a lot of less active members and we got to get 3 inactive families to show up to church!! The members got super happy to see them because they are less active members that haven’t been showing up for a long time. So I feel at the end of it all we have had some pretty good progress with this week. Well we are just keeping everything going well. This next week we will be looking forward to a meeting with President George and his assistants again. Well this is everything for this week and I hope you all are doing well!! I love you all so much! see ya soon(:

Elder Portlock

So this is the rock I bought here, it's pretty cool, the tree of life.

This is a picture of what the public transportation looks like.  ahahahaha.

May 23, 2016

This Week in Tapachula we had our last multi zone meeting! President George came down with the assistants and we learned a lot of new stuff! We changed a lot of new rules of the mission! Oh! And we’re going to be getting new mission pamphlets to teach with! They are really awesome! The only thing is that they’re in English and the church has not made them in Spanish yet, so we just had one pamphlet to read and to see it, so that’s pretty cool! And then later in the day we had a meeting with President George and the stake president about closing and reopening areas here in Tapachula.  I love being able to help President George.

On Friday we traveled up to Huixtla and worked with the stake president for the day.  We had a few references and we found a lot of people to teach. Unfortunately, we won’t be going down there a lot, but we’ll go down next week to help some more!

We have this family here named Montenegro. We baptized the little girl named Valeria about 2 months ago and they are amazing. We have been working with the ward council about buying a wheelchair for the mom because she had an accident a few years ago and can’t walk. So, this week we were teaching them in their house and all of a sudden a really nice member walks in with a wheel chair and says this is for you(: my dad only used it like 8 times and then passed away, so it’s still brand-new. Wow! Patricia was super exited and stared to cry! I really love this family, were really helping them out a ton (: 

We are also teaching Patrocinio, he is this old man who is just super nice.  He has been coming to church very often and wants to get baptized on June 11, so we’re working with him (:

 OH!! And on Saturday I got a call from Comalapa and it was Itzel!!! She said that she is getting baptized! Wow I was super happy! Then on Sunday Yeni and her brothers showed up to church! Wow I was super exited to see my friends from Comalapa  (: I love the mission so much!

So that’s about the rough draft of what happened here in Tapachula this week! Oh! ya, I sent of another package home on Thursday! So we’ll see when it gets home (: let me know! I love you all so much! GOD SPEED THE RIGHT! See ya soon (:

Elder Portlock

Want some sugar?  This is all cana of sugar!!!!  There was SOOOO MUCH!!!!!  Getting ready to be processed!  I'mmm pretty sure the workers get diabetes!  Haha!

 

This is a big tree.  haha

Yeni came to church!

This is the family Montenegro that we have been teaching!  They're really great.

I cut the grass this morning.  haha!

May 16, 2016

This week We traveled to Tuxtla for the zone leader conference (: I was able to see a lot of my friends. We learned great stuff! Our focus this month in the mission is working with the family history director in the ward and having a great relation with him or her, so we can work together and help the converts progress in there new life. I always remember when I was in Comalapa and with the family Hernandez, I love them so much! Their story of their daughter dying a week before her baptism and the family getting her work down in a few months was incredible. They had permission from the prophet to go ahead and not wait a year. I’ll be able to explain the story more when I get home (:  

Oh! And also in the Consejo de Lideres that we had, President George has decided to change a little bit of how we work. We used to have to have 140 contacts a week or 20 every day, a contact is when you talk to someone in the street and try to get there address to visit them. Anyway now we only have to have 35 a week BUT we can only count a contact if we have an address or telephone number... Makes it a bit different. We now have to visit all of our contacts immediately so I’m sure we will be finding a lot more investigators. Anyways this week we will be having a multi-zone conference with President George and the assistants to learn even more so I am super excited for that. Hope all goes well. Well I hope everyone is doing well back at home I love you all so much!! Till next week!!!

Elder Portlock

Traveling down to Tuxtla

WOW!  I never thought this day would come...my picture is the last one, I'm officially the oldest missionary in my mission  :)  haha

My old companion, Elder Fackrell, is assistant!

We did a session at night.  I love the temple so much!  I remember the first time I went through, I was so scared and didn't understand anything!  haha.  Now all the workers know me by name and I understand everything.  :)  This is my second home.  :)

In front of the garbage place.  And it's full of giant birds!

My zone

His name is Angel.  He is a recently baptized member.  He is the nicest and funniest old man I have ever met. hahahahaha  He is super humble and doesn't have any money.  When he laughs it m makes us laugh every time because he only has 5 teeth!!!  hahaha.  In the picture he didn't want to show it.  But Elder Stewart and I decided to go out and buy him a hymn book and the triple so he has nice books.  He almost cried when we gave them to him.  :)