Monday, May 30, 2011

LITTLE DONKEY'S, LITTLE DOGGIES, LITTLE COCONUTS

Ok, I just returned my camera and they could not put the money back on my card. So I have a lot of cash because we took out the money for this month too. I will just use it for shoes and maybe another camera that actually works.
We went to Playa Linda today with the district. I have been here for six weeks already in this area. I am excited for another six.
So it took an hour but Elder Wake finally got up a tree and we had fresh coconut water today.
Tuesday
We had zone conference at our church in San Jeronimito. President Spannaus talked alot about Fasting. How the spirit needs to control the body not the other way around. We did an activity that helped my area alot.
All 18 elders went out for fifteen minutes and tried to find 5 people for each companionship. My new companion for that moment and I found 7. We ended up finding and actually teaching 7 of the 36 or however many we all found this week.
Wednesday
First lesson was with Carmelo and a chihuahua peed on my pants while I was teaching faith in Jesus Christ.
Thursday
Hermana Chuchita called me burro. Then asked me if I knew what it means. Donkey. And then she called me Donkito. And now that is like the joke of the branch.
Friday
We taught a huge family home evening to the branch.
Saturdays we are teaching English classes so it is really cool and funny. And now they know how I feel. ha ha.
Sunday
We went on an adventure to find someone and we ended up not finding them. On our way back we saw a truck named Tina. That made my day.
Have a good week.
Love
Elder Chadwick

Tuesday, May 24, 2011



Mission Wide Conference Held May 17, 2011
Elder Chadwick is right in front of the mission president and his wife. She has on a tan dress and Pres. Spannus a lighter suit.


My foot is back to normal.
The rash is worse.
I couldn't find baby stuff because we were to busy last week.
Thank goodness I received the package or I would have starved last week.
Yes I received all the dearelders. I loved them all. There were like sixty of them and then the package. I received the letter from Sister Pockrus.
I also received a letter from Tamara Watkins. It was great, she is an awesome friend.
Yeah, the bus ride was long last week and there are check points where the police get on and check the bus. One accidentally hit me with the butt of his gun when I was asleep. It woke me up. I was a little frustrated but I didn't have my machete on me so I didn't do anything about it. ha ha.
The Conference was great. Elder Rasband just extended his talk he gave in conference in 2010. He talked more on how we felt about our callings. He also said this is the most supervised two years of our lives. The elders really got a kick out of that for some reason. wink wink nod nod.
It was cool because his translator went to the same mission he was president over but two years earlier. No one knew that until three days into the trip. His wife was cool too. She talked about the statue of liberty and how she imagined the candle as the light of Christ and the book the Book of Mormon. We went to Chili's after and it was not really good for my body. I had a mushroom burger and a dessert and yeah...it all came out like an hour later. This rich lady paid for all of us. There were 12 missionaries and her. She even offered dessert and we can't turn down a rich lady offering dessert. lol. It was good.
We went on splits in Cuarnavaca after lunch and it started pouring rain. Like cats and dogs folks. It was fun.
The bus ride back was boring. I got some rest.
This week was great, after catching up on some sleep we went and found some chosen ones. It is so great to find people who actually read and pray. We can tell they have by the different way they talk to us and their countenance is different. It makes me happy when we come back and they know the Book of Mormon to be true and Jose Smith to be a prophet of God. To bad they couldn't come to church because they had to work or their child couldn't walk. It is sad when they can't make it because they have to work to make ends meet.
Some people are sick and can't make it. During the Conference Elder Rasband opened it up for questions. So I asked one. I asked, "If we have some one that has a testimony of the Book of Mormon can not make it to church because they are sick or disabled do we bring the sacrament to them, can we baptize them?" He had President answer it. They both came to the conclusion that no we do not. Because they would end up as in actives. And I thought that was pretty harsh. But I received a phone call from President the next day asking if we had anyone in that condition and that we could baptize them with a special interview. Kind of interesting. So yeah, quite the question and quite the answer also.
We are having zone conference on our capella, church tomorrow. I am excited. We had to clean and set everything up yesterday. The zone leaders are sleeping over at our house tonight along with two other elders from the zone. We have a possibility of two baptisms this next week if he can stop drinking coffee. He said he would so I am counting on it.
Have a great week.
Elder Chadwick

Monday, May 16, 2011

WALKING IN CHRIST'S SHOES HURTS

So I had surgery last week on my toe. It really hurt. I had to wear sandals all week. That hurt too. But it was my wear sandals like Jesus week. The good thing is...my feet don't hurt anymore. :)There was a doctor in Zihuat. It was a pretty nice place. It cost 450 pesos which put a hole in my wallet for the month. I am going to talk to Hermano Walker tomorrow at conference. The shots hurt but Elder Johanson held me down. It looks normal now.
So this week is going to be tough. We leave Zihuat for Cuarnavaca today at 11 at night. So we will be on the bus for ten hours. Hopefully I can get some sleep.

So I read all of "Draw Closer to God" By President Erying. What a great book...I am sending it home with other books and stuff. When I get money that is.... Elder Rasband is talking to us in mission conference tomorrow. I am excited. The flash does not work on my camera so I am returning it so yeah. I am probably not going to buy shoes until next month.

Yeah, mission conference is this Tuesday and then zone conference the next week. Elder Wake and I have the only baptism in the zone as far as I know. That is kind of bad because President is going to preach. Like throw down, the wrath of Pres.

I get the fifty dearelders tomorrow. That is exciting.
We now have TJs looking for us to try to tear us down. It's not working. We are like stripling warriors and have the Book of Mormon and miniserting angels and a real Bible and yeah, We got the Power!

I still have the rash on my legs. I will call Doctor Kelly and see what it is. He could be there for mission conference. We might make a trip to Mexico City. That would be fun. That is were he is at. We will just have to see.

It was a normal week. We found alot, taught alot, dropped alot and will possibly baptize two this week or next. I did eat fresh coconut. Omero took it off the tree sliced it with the machete and I drank the juice and then he sliced it in half and I ate the coconut. It was very....interesting.

Well, there is alot of stuff going on about 40 minutes away from my area. You can tell when you walk out of church and there are 30 trucks full of army guys speeding down the highway. It is pretty bad just from what I have heard. One member in my branch saw some of it.

I gave a talk on Receiving Personal Revelation in Church yesterday. We had a guy from the Jehovah's witness church tell us we were wasting our time and money and teaching false doctrine. I asked him why his religion was so special and he could not answer my question. It was really funny. Idk, some people just have no clue.

Today we are cleaning the house. We already washed our clothes and stuff. It is a pain because we have to do stuff by hand and the line is the dryer. ha ha. We usually walk on the beach and two weeks ago we played football on the beach. We might go exploring today and try not to get killed in the coconut forest. We want to find our way through and get to the beach and catch sea turtles. I don't get my feet wet because I don't want to take off my shoes so don't worry about me in water.

We are going to go back and I might clean that big tank thing in our back yard. I don't like things dirty. I am going to make pancakes too. The mash potatoes were soooooooo good. Had them last night, I think I died and went to heaven. We are going to do the stuffing later tonight. Send more if it is not that expensive.
So there is this guy who I get three pesos of tortillas from and he always gives me pig skin to go with them. Just a shot story. I thought it was funny. Anyway, have a great week.
Love, Elder Chadwick

Monday, May 9, 2011

PHOTO MANIA



Different views of the church in San Jeronimito

Mother's Day Baptism
View of Bedroom, Companions Hammock, Laundry
Not sure what this is
Entry way and hanging laundry
Elder's house
Elder Chadwick's Bed
The shower
The toilet
Elder Chadwick's desk to study

Hey Everyone,
Yesterday was great! I talked to my mom and had a baptism!
Laura as you can see is about twelve years old and has a
rock solid testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Commandments.
She was kind of scared to be baptized but deep inside she wanted to and the
act was done. It was a little service but it was great and I could feel the spirit.
She was confirmed an hour later in Sacrement Meeting.
The Branch Presidency is doing better and we are meeting new people and
making more friends everyday. We have mission conference next week so
it will be a 10 hour ride to Cuarnavaca and 10 hours back.
Love, Elder Chadwick

Monday, May 2, 2011

MANY RELIGIONS

Today has been great.
We just got back from walking on the beach and looking at all the huge hotels.
It would be really nice to stay here for vacation.
Sunday, testimony meeting was great. There was alot of story telling.
We have alot of possibilities for baptisms this month.
We had three people come to church this week which is great.
I am teaching more and more each day. I am really working hard on my Spanish.
I still am having a hard time though. So don't expect alot....
Apparently I am not the only one who wanted to go home at one point in the mission.
Elder Wake and his generation came from Idaho and about threw the towel in because of stuff elders were doing.
This last week was normal. We did alot of finding and talking to members.
We contacted into a Jehovah's Witness (we will call the TJs from now on) and he invited us in just to argue with us.
He listened to our message and then started asking weird questions. I just sat back and watched him and my companion contend with the bible.
We also had a reference yesterday and went over. It was a old man who was sick and wanted our help. We started teaching him and he does not believe that we are going to be resurrected after this life. He would not change either. It was sad. We even shared scriptures to back it up.
Sometimes we cant do anything to help people because they will not accept our message.
Other people are alot more accepting.
We ran into this drunk TJ. You can tell they were drinking by their eyes.
We quickly started the first discussion and two minutes into it he was committed to be baptized and he had given his bible to us.
The Jehovah's Witnesses bible is not really a bible at all. We looked in it and they have all the verses marked and then we came to verses like this...34--
They omitted the verse to change the doctrine. It shows it in their own scripture...
Anyway, I dont really get into that stuff because I think it is not good for me and I dont like to argue.
Carmen and her daughter prayed and know Joseph Smith is a Prophet! I was so excited about this. Carmen came to church and had a friend in the branch.
After church every Sunday we get a list of who we are eating with that week.
She was on the list. This is great. When investigators want you to eat with them that is huge!
Almost all the area ran out of water over the weekend and then it came back on last night.
The Branch Presidency got into a car accident along the way to a meeting. They are all okay thankfully but if they were killed we would not have hardly any priesthood and it would be difficult to get a handle on things. Good thing they are ok.
The members really like us, especially the children.
Work is great here but we are competing with missionaries from other religions. Mainly the TJs.
It is great. We are having a great time. The food is great.
We ate at this hermanas house and all it was, was two pieces of chicken. I got the neck of the chicken. They are really happy to be part of the gospel and I think they feed more on the word than on food.
It is a really a blessing being here with this branch. I will probably be here for a while. People are really nice and let us in but don't want a return appointment.
There are alot of different religions here.
The Light of the World was actually formed by an ex missionary. They have a whole block that goes to their church.
We are going to district meeting. I have something for you for Mothers day. You will get it next Monday. I wrote something....it is awesome and funny and you might even cry.
Love Elder Chadwick