Elder James Robert Hadley

March 3, 2014

We eat at members houses every day for lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal here by far. Every day except P day, but sometimes they invite us then too. We leave the house everyday at 10:30 and get back at 9:00 - 9:30 so we are out at night. The area next to us is more dangerous, and they said a guy pulled a long knife on them and asked for money, but they just gave him a pass along card with Jesus on it and he backed off. They just asked him if he wanted to change his life and through Jesus he can. 
We have district conferences and zone conferences every Tuesday and every 12 weeks a conference with 4 zones and the mission president.
So I'm really learning Spanish a ton. I can pretty much communicate whatever I want. I am connecting a ton with some of the members of the Ward. Some of them are so amazing. I really love them so much. It's going to be sad to leave them. The area I'm in is amazing. Really this week I kind of arrived to a new level of happiness and dedication out here. It's exciting.

March 10, 2014

Sometimes it's hard because I am so new and it's a different language and all. But I'm really starting to learn it so much. I can converse with everyone and express pretty much all of my ideas. It's so exciting and it's to the point that I don't even think of what I'm saying, it just comes out. I'm not fluent yet, because there is a ton of vocabulary that I need to learn, but I'm getting there. I can understand pretty much everything too, at first that was the hard part.
So, we find people to teach by either references from people or by contacting in the streets. For health reasons we can't just knock doors. We contact a ton of people in the street every week. The goal for everyone is 70 people every week, 10 a day. Sometimes a bit hard to get motivated to talk to everyone, random people in another language, but really me just stopping could really change their lives forever and help them and their families a ton.
We are teaching a ton of new people. The most promising of all is a women named Marina and her two daughters. The first time Marina went to church was fast Sunday and she bore her testimony. In front of everyone. After her daughters got out of primary they ran up to us and asked, "When are we going to get baptized?" They are awesome. Marina used to drink a ton of coffee, but last week in church her Sunday School teacher said one thing about how we need to follow the words of the prophets, for example not drink alcohol of coffee and Marina didn't drink coffee once last week. We haven't even taught her that yet.
The hardest thing here is getting people to church. Everyone works on Sunday or they sleep in. It's so hard to just get people to church the first time. But that is the key.
I'm doing well. I'm halfway through this change and I'm going to be sad to leave. I love the members here. Some of them have become such great friends. It will be fun to get a new companion and go to a new area.

March 17, 2014

Marina and her daughters are doing so good, Marina is amazing. She loves all of the lessons on tithing and law of chastity and all the other commandments. Other investigators are bummed to hear that stuff. 
We have other people that we are teaching, Martha and Alfredo, who have 2 kids, and I think we, well the next missionaries here will baptize them. I want to baptize a bunch more families because, really, Mexico is in a horrible moral crisis. Of course pop culture has been teaching everyone bad morals, but here in Mexico it is amplified. So the reason I love helping families is to help the kids grow up in a good environment, teaching good morals with loving parents. This is one thing that I love about the church. Martha and Alfredo love it too.
Yeah, I don't know, not a ton out of the ordinary happened this week. Just living the mission life.

March 24, 2014

Yesterday we baptized Marina and her daughters. It was a great experience. I'm excited to continue teaching them this week. The thing is that Marina was already like 100% prepared to hear about the Gospel. She was taught extremely good values from a young age. When we told her about Tithing and The Word of Wisdom and all that stuff she was so excited to do them. It's interesting. And her daughters are great too, they have been taught way well. I baptized both of them. A member from the Ward, baptized Marina.
We are teaching a lot of new people. And yes, it's weird to just go up and talk to people in a foreign language in a foreign land, but it's getting easier. It wasn't wayyyy hard for me at first, just hardish for them to understand me. But my Spanish is getting way better. I tried to say a prayer in English and I couldn't do it very well... ahah. 
So we found this one guy who is working in the Temple right now, they are re-doing the inside. So he is super interested in everything.
Also, we found this guy from Utah (it's weird we find a lot of people from Utah) and he speaks really good English. We were teaching him, and even though sometimes he would talk in English I would always respond in Spanish, I always do this cause it's funny, but then all the sudden I started teaching in English and it felt so weird but so easy. He said that he just wants to change his life and be like a piece of clay in the hands of God. He wants to be baptized way bad, but he is going back to Utah next week. We are going to teach him more and he is going to get baptized up there. USA missionaries need more baptisms. He just one day came up to us on the street and asked for a Book of Mormon, it was weird because that never happens. I'm excited to teach him more. 
I'm way happy to be here. Teaching families morals, helping children have good lives, it's the best. I really really hope that the daughters of Marina stay strong with the church.
I am changing areas next week, Monday, I might just stay here but I think I will go somewhere else. I'm going to miss the people here though, the members and the investigators.

March 31, 2014

Today were changes. I changed my area to an area that is completely opposite. My old area was hilly and super poor. This new area is in Distrito Federal, named "Roma" and it has a Cathedral named Zocalo, and it is pretty much the Time Square of Mexico. The are SO MANY people. The area around the central is just a super huge city with super tall buildings and everything. I feel like I left Mexico and I'm in Europe. It is so awesome. I'm excited to work here. When I decided to go on a mission this is the kind of place I wanted to go. A big foreign city.
There are a lot of couple missionaries, like 10 I think. Some of them live here. 
My new companion is my first white companion. Well I'm super excited for General Conference. The last 6 weeks FLEW by so fast I can't believe it.