The Tepito

whats up SD?

hey so this week was just alright. on wed. we went to the temple with half of the mission. then we had a christmas devotional after. it was way cool to go to the temple again. i felt the spirit so strong and i actually understood evrything which higly surprized me. that was cool.

on friday we had our ward christmas party. it was cool. we ate pasole. which is a soupo like thing with really big corn kearnals and meat. it was good but they ran out of salsa so i didnt get any so it weas lacking a bit of flavor. then we did the piñatas. it was cool. the really little kids started then the young men and then the young women. it was cool. i helped make the piñata go crazy. then we ate cake and played basket ball.

so this week was like the week of the "virgin". on thursday i thjink was day of the virgin. and starting tuesday and wed people started to have partys to the virgin. it was kind of weird. they put up a giant statue or painting of the virgin just so they can have an excuse to drink like crazy. we got some pretty hard stares this week. good times.

on tuesday we started to see people start the walk of the virgin. people traveling to the basilica de la virgin (like 15 miles away). we saw people walking riding bikes in trucks. i counted over 50 peolple in one day. my comp told me that one lady last year went there on her knees. they all get there and worship the virgin and then leave. a bunch of peolpe go there.

so this week i through down some more pansita. if you dont remember its stomach. this time i actually could eat it. it was still pretty gross. it dosnt taste amazingly horrible but the texture gets to ya. but i did it.

so yesterday a member told us that she weas going to take us to a market where we could find shoes cheep. so we got in the car and asked her whear exactly we were going and she said. tepito. so tepito is famous here for two things. like the harmana said stuff dirt cheep. asnd the other. its like the most dangerous place here in DF. the stuff is so cheep cuz you buy it then ten feet later they will steal it back. amazingly we didnt get robbed. that might have been because we didint buy anything. cuz here in mexico it is terribly hard to find shoes big enough for my "giant" feet. people say that my feet are massive which they are compared to their tiny feet here.

well all is well and im doing good. we are working but havnt found much succeess but the Lord will do his thing. love ya lots. keep working hard and keep in touch. amor y dedos

elder skaggs

Algo Differente

hey

this weeek was a little diffrent. we actually had success. this week was good in some areas but bad in others. ill start with the bad. we were working really hard this week. and getting allot of lessons set up. but almost all of them fell through. about 95%. not kidding. so that was kind of a downer.

good news. we had 3 baptisms this week. on wed we had one. a girl named claudia. by finding her we have started to re activate her whole family. mom, grandma, uncles. they are way cool. on sunday we had two more baptisms. Yadira y Diana. a mom and her daughter. they are way cool. Yadira´s sister and mom are members. so they have a way good support.

this weeek was much better. today we went to look for shoes but we couldnt find any good ones on sale. so i think this next monday we are going to another place to look. but i did find a sweet hoodie. its one of the hand made mexi ones. it is blue. and cost me only 90 pesos or like less than 8 dollars.

last night we had the Christmas devotional brodcasted to the stake center. i was kind of dissapointed with the show. i wanted to hear more music. i have appreciated english music more since i got here cuz the people here can not sing if their life counted on it. im being serious. the wards sound terrible. no one knows the tunes or how to hit notes. im not saying that i can sing good but i can follow a tune allright.

so this wed we get to go to the temple as a mission. that will be so cool. im looking forward to that allot. it will be interesting in spanish.

i hope you are all doing good. love ya lots and keep in touch.

elder skaggs

Temple celebration and rededication

hey evryone! this weekend was probably the best weekend of my life. not kidding. no i didnt go to acapulco or veracruz. hahah but some really cool things went down this week. ill start from the begining.

friday: we had multi zone conf. prez talked to us about the temple and really motivated me. it was a good confrence. i also got to see some of my buddies from my generation. elder loser, glenn, gillespie and elmer. i also got to see my old dl elder ewell. it was good to cetch up on the good old times.

saturday: we worked up until 12 and then ate with a member. then we left for the Estadio Azteca. the biggest futbol stadium in latin america or the world i dont remember. we got there around three. i got to see almost evryone from my gen. there. i also saw my dad elder bentancourt and my brother elder alverez. also i got to see about half of the members from my first area. they were all really excited to see me but i didint have time to talk for a while so i gust shook their hands and said hi. but it was really cool to see them.

then we got into the stadium. it is huge. it is almost the same as qualcom but way bigger. it is the same shape and evrything. but we sat in zones and missions. i sat next to elder loser. it was cool to hang with him for the whole thing. so then we started to sing, evryone in the stadium hymns to wait for the prophet. it was really cool. i felt the spirit really strong as we sang almost all of the members from DF together. then the prophet came and waved to evryone it was really cool.

then we started. prayer, song, the usual. then president eyring spoke and then the Prophet spoke. they both gave short talks but they were both really good talks. then they started the dances. all of the stakes from DF danced it was cool but we were siting so low that we couldnt see well. then they told us that we were going soon and that we needed to go out of the stadium to go in from the botom onto the feild. we all (2000 missionaries from DF Puebla and Cornavaca) left our seats and headed to the ramps. we were like a herd of cows. it was crazy we all moved like one person down this really steep ramp. i couldnt stop. it was crazy. then we were about to enter the feild.

the young men from DF dressed up like missionaries and went on the feild and started to sing a missionarie song. i dont remember what it was but it was cool. then we started to walk on the feild singing "Called to Serve" it was way cool. the people whent crazy. i could feel how much the members here really support and love the missionaries. then we were all out there on the feild and the prophet was waving his hankerchif at us and then the whole stadium did it. it was awesome.

then we left the feild and the stadium. we were the last act. then we got tortas and went home. and slept

sunday: we went to the rededicaion at 12. we went to the stake center to watch it. it was soo cool i felt the Holy Ghost so strong during most of the session. it was a great experiance to see a Prophet of the Lord rededicate a Temple.

sory for the long email but this weeek a lot of things happened. we had transfers last night and we are both staying here in Mirasoles. but we got a new Zone Leader. guess who. Elder Glenn my comp from the MTC. that is way cool. he is an awsesom missionarie and has been fluent for like 3 months. crazy huh?

thats about it for this week. love ya much

elder skaggs

Shoelaces-6 months in the field

hey evryone,

this week was just alright. my comp is dead and doesnt want to work real hard but thats fine i guess. if i stay another transfer(transfers are this coming week) i will ressurect him. im trying now but its hard. especially when its really hot and he doesnt want to work and also saturdays are hard cuz we waste lots of time in the tiangies. another weird thing about my comp is that he punches things. we`ll be walking along and he will punch a tree or a wall randomly. i dont really know what to think about that but it doewsnt bother me much.

zapatos: this week i bought new shoes. i got some sweet brown slip ons. they are really comfy but i think they are going to run out really fast. i bought them for 250 pesos or about 19 dollars. so im sure they wont last. it was kind of a dumb purchase looking back but im only going to use them on sundays and tuesdays to make them last. at least they look good.

fronton: you guys probably dont remember but i wrote about fronton in my first area. its a game that they play alot here. there is a big wall that they hit a tennis ball against with their hand. its like raquet ball i guess. but today we were were going to play. me and my comp but all of the walls were taken. rayos! but ill try to play next week and tell you how it goes.

and the story of the week:

chiflando niñas: so here people wistle or make a chh-chh noise to get your attention. and most of the time its used to cat call or say "what up baby?" so we were walking passed this school this week and all the little kids were going to school. so i was walking along and i heared someone making the chh-chh noise. so i turned to se who it was just out of curiosity ove course. i dont see anyone but a bunch of 5 and 6 year old kids. and then one of them waves at me says "hola" all sexy like. i was so confused and didnt know what to do. i thought did that just happen? so i said "hola" back and kept walking. i guess they teach the kids young to try to catch a gringo and get him to take you o the states. hahaha. but seriously.

well thats about it for this week. we got blanked again in the church. but we found a really cool family. we will se if tehy will progress or just do nothing like our other investigators.

thanks for the love and support.

elder skaggs

ps preston congrats on the mish call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hechele muchas ganas (work hard)

New kitchen and 125 cars

hey fools,
whats up? this week was better. we actually had people at church. we only had two but thats better than 0. they are a coupple that we have to marry before they can get baptized. they are cool and have a crazy kid named logan. he likes us allot. so this week our numbers were really low. but i put my comp to work on sat and we got lessons set up for all day tuesday and wednesday. it was hard this week because we were at the temple 2 days of the week. but this week should be a little more relaxed and we can have allot of success if we work hard.

so wed we whent to the temple again. it was really good. i actually got to follow 3 groups as they did the tour. i felt the spirit really strong there in the temple. i got a surprize when i showed up to the temple. my comp from the MTC Elder Glenn was there. he is way chill and we decided to go on divisions with each other. and guess what we did? we whent to the same stop light that i was at on monday to invite people to come to the temple when they stopped. we contacted 125 cars each. it was really fun. we were running to try to get more cars than the other. it was really cool. i jumped on some more busses. it was a really cool day at the temple.

so today we went to play futbol rapido again. it was fun. i totally juked this mexi. my DL. it was way funny. then we came home and changed houses. the member that we live with, her daughter is coming home from the mission soon so they want to do construction on the room so we had to move. our new house is pretty chill. we have a citchen. so thats cool.

not much else to report. love you guys and keep up the good work.
amor y dedos,
elder skaggs

Temple Open House and combies

October 21, 2008

well this week was pretty average as far as it has been going here. we once again had allot of people set up to come to chuch and none of hem came. so that is a bummer. well i really tried to prevent that this week but i guess im not good enough. hhahaha. so i tought the sabboth day to this family of 6 that we commited to come. the guy works on sundays and i told him that he should test God to see if He would bless him for not going to work and going to chuch. he was really excited after my lesson and said that he was going to do it. well we passed by their house on sunday morning and they had left to go to work, all of them. so that was lame. now for the good news. yesterday (monday) we got the opportunity to help with the open house of the mexico city temple. it was the first day of the open house so there wasnt an amazing amount of people there. but it was a great experiance. we helped the people get from the exit of the temple to the place where theey can write comments and say if they want to learn more. so, we had allot of missionaries there helping so i had some time to go invite people to come. there is a stopligt in front of the temple and i stood out in front with another gringo that dosnt know spanish. when the light tuned red and the cars stopped i would go and talk to the people in there cars and invite them to come to see the temple. it was really cool. i also jumped on two combies (busses) and told all of the people on the buss that they should come to visit the temple. it was really good i gained allot of confidence in talking to stangers so hopefully i can keep it up. today i also talked to all of the people on the combie. its fun i feel like one of the gus that sells chicle o algo asi. hahha well this week was ok for the work. we need to work harder if we want to seee the results. im going to really focuss on contacting and the open house this week. i hopee we can get some people to come to church this week. weel see what happens. its all up to the Lord this is His work. all we have to do is find the people that He has prepared to recive His gospel. well thats about all folks, thanks for the emails and keep in touch
elder skaggs

Two gems!

que onda?

this week we had transfers. on tuesday i recived elder solis. he is pretty cool. he doesnt talk much but he isnt likie a mute person. he ways like 100 pounds more than me and we both eat allot. he is from ciudad juarez, chihuhua. which is pretty close to the boarder of texas. he is really nice. ive had to really step up this week in the lessons. i do most of the talking now which is really good and should help me to pregress really fast at spanish and gain more confidence.

this week was a little hard as far as the work goes. we had alot of lessons set up. but almost all of them fell through. the people that were supposed to come to church all couldnt. we were supposed to marry this coupple this friday so that se could get baptized on sunday but they had problems with their papers so we coudnt go. this week will be better for sure. but the good thing is that my comp is cool and he is not dead. we are working hard and it will pay off soon.

but we did have some success this week. we had a baptism. a gut names jose luis. he was a refrence from a member lady in our ward. a member baptized him. they have been good friends since he started coming to church. he is really cool. he is alot like armando who just got baptized. he is the only convert of his family. but he really wants his family to be able to join the church too. that is a good sighn that the people are really converted when they love and know that the gosple is true they will want for the people that they love to know that too.

yesterday when we walked through the tiangie (street market) i found two gems. i found a sweet rudolph tie that will be absolutly perfect fro christmas time. and i also found a retro angels jersy that a guy was selling for 80 pesos or 8 dollers. i didnt have that much cash at the time so im going to but it next sat. ill send some pics and hopefully i can find it again.

today we realaxed all day. it was really nice to sleep in and recharge my batreries. this week we need to work really hard and get allot of people to come to church and find allot of new investigators. i know that if we keep working hard and dont give up the Lord will bless us with the success that we deserve. thanks for the emails and keep in touch. les amo muchisimo.

elder skaggs