11 Months Y'all (Semana 48)

FSY missionaries

Que onda mis amigos?!?!

Well this past week I completed 11 months out here in Mexico on the best mission ever.  I have loved every second of it!!! It is literally the best ever!!!

So I don’t have any time to write so I am going to be super quick!! 

Starting off with the awesome parts - we are preparing our dude Sammy for baptism in a few weeks and he is so excited!! He loves when we come and talk about the scriptures and about Jesucristo and it is so awesome! We also got to play Uno with him and not to brag or anything but I won like 5 times in a row so yeah I am a pro! We also have been preparing Johana for baptism and she is so ready! She loves going to church and is seeing so many changes in her life for the better. When we first met her she was very sad and had a lot of problems with drugs and alcohol but she has been able to change and is such an example for me!  Yesterday she showed up to church in a new skirt that she bought just for church and she loves the ward. She is awesome! 

In Friday this past week we had the awesome opportunity to participate in FSY, a program for the youth of the church. We got to sing and help the youth learn how to share the Gospel with their friends. It was so awesome and the Spirit was so strong!!!

Well that’s all I got folks!!

Les extraño y les amo!!

con amor

elder mcclellan

out here in the desert!!

cows!!

la comida con alfaro

One Year Left!! (Semana 47)

Finished reading the Book of Mormon

What's going on my peeps!! How the heck are y'all doing??? 

As of tomorrow I will have one year left in the mission! Super crazy!

I don't have much time right now but let me just share the highlights of the week.

1. We have been teaching this one kid Sammy this week and he is preparing for baptism in this next month. He is a super cool kid and so funny. When we first started teaching him he was so quiet and didn't wanna listen to us. Slowly we started gaining his trust and now we are his friends. We even got to play Uno with him!

2. We weren't able to meet with Yaneth y Filo this week that much because something always came up when we passed by and they were never home and their phone was broken. But then we were in church yesterday and Yaneth just walked in with her son. It was so awesome because they showed up by themselves on time! Such a miracle!

3. This week I also had a very traumatic experience.....We were walking home from comida along the street just talking when all of the sudden a black pick up comes flying down the street. It slows down a bit and rolls down the window and then attacks us...by throwing a lime at us jajajajajaj. It was actually one of the funniest things ever because he straight up threw a tiny lime at us. 

4. We made Pupusas. Really dope food from El Salvador. Look them up and try them!!

Well thats all the time I have today!! 

Les Amo y Les Extraño!!!

con amor

elder mcclellan

rosari, me, duke

rad tag pic at night

Chillin with my best friend 

Pupusas!!

alfaro y yo at night

a member made us a cake

Work Hard, Pray Hard (Semana 46)

dope dudes (johanson, norman, jerronimo, schenck, yo)

How goes it my gringos?? This week was quite a strange week. First off this week starts the canícula, the hottest part of the year here in Monterrey because it's when the sun is the closest to the earth. It starts in the middle of July and ends at the end of August, so this will be fun. My compañero even starts singing "here comes the sun, du du du duh" whenever we walk for a long time because it is hecka hot. 

This week was also very very strange because we haven't been in our area that much. On Tuesday we had a full day of work so that was great. On Wednesday we had to go to the offices of the west mission and lets just say that it was pretty interesting trying to get over there. We had to take like 3 buses and it took like 2 and a half hours but we got there jajaja. It was really cool cause we got to see the center of Monterrey and got to meet some awesome missionaries from the west mission. On Thursday we had our district meeting and we have a new guy in our district, Elder Duke from Hawaii. He just got here from the CCM and he is super awesome! He doesn't speak much spanish but he is so ready to work!! Love his attitude!! (also plays pro rugby so watch out). Then on Friday we had our Zone Conference. We had it with the Apodaca and Moderna Zones. It was cool to see some of the old homies from my first months of the mission. Also I met Elder Norman. He is a dope dude that is from Morgan, Utah! That's where my dad's family is from! So that was awesome!

On Saturday we had a full day of work. We had to make up for the lost time and so we did literally all we could this day to have success. It was probably one of the most tiring days but one of the most successful. I love the work and we are seeing so many milagros here each day. For example we were walking home one day and this dude just pulls up next to us and says that we need to go visit his family real quick to share a message and to say a prayer because they're members and are about to leave for Texas. We hurried over to their house and met one of the most awesomest families ever. It also turns out that this guy that stopped us isn't a member but wants to be baptized! Such an amazing experience!!  

One thing that I really focused on this week was something simple but very important: prayer. When we pray we are literally talking to our Heavenly Father and He hears and answers us! We always need to pray though, and when we pray we must have faith! In the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 18: 19-20 says "19 Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name;

20 And whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you."

So yeah like I said in the title, Pray Hard!

well thats all for the week

les extraño y les amo

con amor

elder mcclellan

the district

post conf

chillin on an empty bus

Good ole' Santa Pink (Semana 45)

alfaro y yo en the street

BUENAS TARDES YALL!!! Como estan??? How y'all been doin?? Out here in santa rosa we have been doing just great!! This week has been a week of great opportunities and interesting experiences. I am loving Mexico more and more every day and am doing great and feeling comfortable with Spanish! If any of y'all need a translator for spanish hit me up, I'm basically a cooler version of Google Translate. 

Well, this week started off pretty great and really hot. We have to walk to this one colonia everyday and it takes about an hour to get there. Let's just say it is a little rough when its 100 degrees and your walking next to the freeway but it's all part of the mission. I am a lot darker than when I started the mission so that is pretty cool. Back to the point, we have been working a lot in this colonia and we have had some pretty great results. We were able to find quite a few people to teach over there and its been going great! I love this area and this work!! It is so awesome!!! This past week we had a lesson that was super amazing and the spirit was so so strong. Our investigador even accepted to be baptized!! It was so amazing to see how the Spirit works and testifies to others!! 

This week has also been a week of testing how diligent we are. Almost everyday it was raining and when it rains here it is pretty rough. The water floods the streets like shin deep and it is a pain to walk through. So yeah let's just say we got soaked quite a bit this past week. But, hey its all good!! Also today we played some dope soccer with the youth of the ward! Super fun as always!!

I honestly don't remember much of what happened this past week but it was a great week! 

les extraño y les amo 

con amor

elder mcclellan

 trompoburgers and sangria!!

Westside!!! (Semana 44)

my dude Schenck!

Well I am officially part of the Mexico Monterrey West Mission. Its crazy to think that I will have half my mission in the East side and the other half on the West side. Lets see what all I can do here!

So this past week has been a pretty good week of straight work. Its pretty funny right now because I have 2 lines that show that we have been out working according to my companion Elder Alfaro. I have a super super bad watch tan line and I also have a weird line on my shirts at the end of the day from my bag. So yeah we have been out here grinding in the heat. Oh yeah it is also getting pretty hot here in Monterrey, especially when there is no such thing as Air Conditioning here, like it just doesn’t exist here. At night it feels like I am sleeping in a brick oven.

Ok back to the point, so this week we were able to go out to work, and since we are basically starting over again in the area we did a bunch of contacting. Like almost the entire week contacting. We did find some interesting nice people and some other not so nice people but hey its all good. We also went on some visits with Hermano Sanchez and Brenda to visit some of the less active members in the ward and to share a quick message. We also ate some super rico hot dogs with them! Such an awesome family. This week we also worked with this one dude named Miguel. He is a friend of a member in the ward and he really likes the church, he even came this week dressed up in a white shirt and tie.

This past week was also pretty cool to see how the Holy Ghost works. So one of our investigadores has been out of town and dealing with the death of a loved one and we haven’t been able to contact her for awhile. So yesterday we were eating with a family and the hermana told us that she had a feeling this past week to send a message to Perla, something brief just to say that she was thinking about here. Well Perla then said that it made her day and that she wants the sisters from the church to visit her and talk with her and just help her through this moment. It was so awesome to see the Holy Ghost work in the lives of others! 

well just wanna end this letter with a really good scripture that I was thinking about this week. Its Ether 12:27 "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

sometimes it might seem as tho we have a bunch of weaknessess in our life that it might seem to hard to handle but I know that if you turn to the Lord for help he will make those weak things into strenghts. I have seen it so many times in my own life and it the life of other, especially here in the mission!

well i got to go back out to serve

les extraño y les amo!!!

con amor
elder mcclellan

intercambios with Rosario (dope dude from Dominican Republic that plays basketball for his country)

campechanas y frijoles