July 27, 2015

Hola!

Hey Everyone! This week we had several exciting events! first off, Ruth Gomez was baptized last week and confirmed just yesterday! It has been such a wonderful experience getting to watch her progress as she learned and accepted the gospel. She was a little nervous about being baptised and confirmed, but her son, Rojelio, Was baptised about a year and a half ago and was able to encourage and help her to make these changes in her life. Rojelio was baptised, but about 6 months ago fell away from the church. It started with him working on sundays. That is the #1 most common cause for people falling away from the church. If you are missing church to go and provide for your families, stop it! Don't you understand that you can better provide for your family by going to church with them? That you can gain all of the blessings of a closer, more loving family? That these are the things that really matter? And you can get them by attending church more regularly! Think about it: Eternal Blessings, or Money. 

But anyways, he's now active again and it's going super great! And Ruth is super happy too!

Share a smile with someone new today!

Love Elder Phillips

July 20, 2015

Hey everyone!

Really sorry, but this will probably be the shortest letter ever written! 

This week we had a baptism! Ruth Gomez was baptized and it was a super funny experience! Her grandkids were actually gone this week so they'll have to be baptised another week. but anyways, here's what happened.

Ruth Gomez is about 60 years old, and as you can see in the picture below, she's kinda big. We had a lot of trouble finding baptismal clothes for her, but that's a story for another day. She wanted my companion to baptize her (see elder Aguilar below? he's 135lbs soaking wet.) As he baptized her, she didn't quite go all the way under at first, so he let her down a bit more (so she was fully submerged) and then was unable to bring her back out of the water! So he just stood there for awhile struggling to raise her back out of the water while we just watched from our seats. After desperately trying for about ten seconds, he gave up and just took a step back, letting go of her and letting her get back up on her own! It was a super funny experience, but super awesome as well. Being able to watch the Atonement take affect in peoples lives is truly a blessing.

And remember, God will always listen to your prayers. If you ever have any questions, doubts, concerns, comments, or jokes, God is there and he will hear you and answer you! Unless it's like a Knock-Knock joke. I'm not sure if it works like that.

Love you all

Elder Phillips

(wow, isn't John skinny!!)

Hola Familia!

Tengo un chiste para ustedes: Cual es la diferencia de una pera y la novia de un misionero? una es una pera, y el otro no espera!

If you don't understand, I'm sorry. But it doesn't really translate well into english. But if you speak spanish you'll think it's hilarious! Anyways, I was thinking about starting a general family email to save a bit on time. If you don't like it, I can go back to how it was with individual letters, but I'd like to give this a try.

First of all, Thank you so much for the package! We recieve packages between the first and second monday every month during our Zone Meeting. It was so awesome seeing your pictures, and food, and a super awesome towel that I use to cool off after running, and food, and talks, and letters, and that Mexican Flag that Anna made for me, AWESOME! Thank you all so much! Down here in Mexico Beef Jerky is just yesterdays beef that they left out overnight so it got really hard.

Mom and Dad: Thank you both so much! Those talks by Christensen and Bytheway are awesome! My comp doesn't understand any of the jokes, but it's good practice explaining them to him in Spanish :). He's been out here for 1 year and it nearly fluent in English. However, he doesn't quite yet catch all my subtle puns and phrases in english. So i've been teaching him some slang. Because you know me, the Thug from Boise ID. Yup. He also loves singing songs, both in spanish and some pop songs in english. It makes me very grateful for (and miss a lot) those road trips and long drives we had singing songs in the car for hours on end. I miss you both and I love you so much! I hope you have fun on your cruise and I hope that there are more to come! 

Kat: Hey! I already wrote you! But still, I love you! Have fun with your baby! And just think, You could have another baby by the time I get home!! Crazy Thought, right? Some families down here have like 12 kids! how many are you thinking? 

Megan: Heyyo! I love you! I'm glad you're having fun with girls camp and stuff! And almost a full month down in Pokey? Crazy! I hope it goes well and you and Maren have a good time! Have you made any specific or extra fun plans yet? And thank you so much for your wonderful drawings of Johnpoleon Dynamite and Johncho Libre. My companion didn't quite understand them, but hey, they've never even heard of Nacho libre down here. Any new epic movies come out lately? And everyone out here in Juarez wants to know if you plan on serving a mission. What are your thoughts there? And if not, or if not now, What school would you like to go to?

Ellie: Thank you so much for your awesome drawings! Did you guys really get a new cat? and then get rid of it again? What for?! I want to adopt one of the stray cats around here, but it's kinda against the mission rules. And was Jurassic world super good? You need to make me a list of all your favorite movies so i can see them in 2 years! I love you and hope you have fun this summer! remember: There's 104 days of summer vacation, and school comes around just to end it. The annual problem of our generation is finding a good way to spend it. So make the most of it and have fun!

Anna: Hey Anna! Thank you for the Mexican Flag and card that you sent me! They are super awesome! I hope that you too have a lot of fun in Pocatello and play a lot with Emma and Layla, and Liam. Especially Liam, because i wont be there to play with him. But I hope you have so much fun! I love you and mis you super much a lot! And keep having fun for me! Let me know about how much fun you're having with your cousins and friends!

Thank you so much everyone! 

Love you all!

Elder Phillips!

July 13, 2015

Hola Amigos!

       So whats up this week? A party, that's what!

Ok, not really a party, but it was fun! First off, we say goodbye to Elder Chalmers. But we welcome Elder Aguilar. He's from Puebla, Mexico and his name means Eagle  in spanish. He's been teaching me a lot about improving my spanish and it's been great. It rained this week! It was wonderful! Unfortunately, three days later, the water is still pouring out of the water main and onto the streets. But the clouds are awesome! Everytime I see a cloud my heart does a little happy dance. 

       So my companion is learning english and I'm learning spanish right now. This means our conversations are crazy blends of two different languages and hand signals. We're pretty good at charades now. However, one of our favorite things to do is sing songs. Mostly just hymns. This is our favorite way to practice learning each others languages. It's been pretty fun so far, and I've almost got a few hymns memorized!

       So this week I tried teaching my companion how to start The Boiler. After letting him try for a few minutes, I attempted a demonstration and lets just say it didn't turn out so well for me. I burnt a lot of the hair off of my right hand and about a third of it off of my arm. My eyebrows and my hair were fine (Hallelujah!) but my eyelashes were singed. Fortunately, nobody can really tell. Either that or they just haven't said anything. 

       Familia Gomez is getting baptized this week! There are three of them, The Abuela, And the 2 Grandsons (about 10 yrs old). We've been teaching them for a few weeks and they are pretty excited for this next step! They have been attending church for about 2 months now and are getting to know the people in our little ward. Our ward is the Chapultepec 1 ward. And it is the best! There are so many wonderful members here that are always willing to help the missionaries in the work!

Adios!

 Elder Phillips

Hey Mom!

I love hearing all about Girls camp and seing the pictures! we cant have bikes in our mission, so i recommended that we buy horses and ride them around. or Donkeys. The Burritos are still good and heres one you have to try. Its called Chile Relleno. Take a large jalapeño and hollow it out. then stuff it with cheese. dip it in a batter of sorts and then grill it. stick it in a totillla shell with beans and some meat and tadaa! chile relleno! they also dont use taco seasoning down here. I dont know why though. Im still trying to figure out some things.

Every P day we have 1hr and 30 minutes to write our mission president, friends, family, and our baptized converts if we changed areas. if you are a DL or ZL, you get more time to write the president and stuff. We havent done anything fun for pday yet. and as for packages, I'll probably get it tonight at our Zone Meeting.

Mark and Seth are leaving already? What!!!! Crazy! I'll have to write my old teacher at the CCM and see if Seth is put in his class. thats crazy awesome! And Steven's getting back home? Already! Time sure does fly out here!

 That sounds like a great object lesson too! even though it wasnt quite as you planned, it went great! 

And you were right! I was doubting what you said about the rainy season, but it rained last week! it was a full on flood almost! I wish I had some pictures to send you. It was cloudy too and felt awesome!

Here's our adress if you want to google maps it! 

Santiago Mendez 1513

Ciudad Jaurez, Chiuahua

Mexico

I think thats it, more or less. 

Love you mom!

Elder Phillips

July 6, 2015

Hey everyone!

6 weeks in the field have gone by so fast! 2 years will be done before you know it!

I know that there are some of you thinking "Only 6 weeks! That was the longest 6 weeks of my life! What ever will I do without Elder Phillips for 2 whole years?" 

You know who you are.

Anyways, I love it here! Jesus Antonio got baptized, my comp is getting sent to the border as a District L​eader, and I'm getting a new trainer. We've been partying it up real good here. But this is the end. So we say goodbye to Elder Chalmers. By the way, He's from Montana. He's almost as white as I am! And so I attatched a picture of us "Straight facing it" And another of Jesus's Baptism. If you can't tell which one he is, let me give a hint: he's the Mexican.

Anyways, I love you all! I love all the people in the world and would give you all a stray mexican puppy if i could. But i cant. And it would probably have rabies.

Hasta Luego!

Elder Phillips