Yooo buen dia my dear friends. I'm writing this email from you from the church while talking to three other missionaries about avatar, so this should be quite the wild ride. Actually, to reward all you people that weren't scared away by the title, we're gonna make this a not standard missionary email. So lets do bullet points.
-Took a three hour bus to Torreon this week
-Woke up at 4:30 to get to a church where the bus was going to be
- Had a missionary gift exchange, bought lots of peanut m&m's
- Reveived two ties, a shirt and a tie clip
-Definitley feel bad about only buying peanut m&m's
-Had a great time
-Had many wonderful chrismas dinners
-One christmas dinner I got back home at 12:30, don't tell the district leader
-My companion leader is the district so I guess it doesn't matter.
-Played soccer this morning, played like a beast.
-Played laser tag for 30 minutes and it only cost $2.50. My team took dubs
-Played monopoly deal until 1 am last night. Ended in tears and bloodshed.
-Washed my clothes with the rock washboard thing in my house. My fragile priviledged Utah hands are still upset at me. Pictures down below (not of my hands).
-Got two new Kendamas for christmas. Look out for dope highlight reel of all my tricks in the upcoming weeks/months
-Spiritual bullet point: We had a lesson with Ezequiel again and he was thriving. He is reaping the rewards of the gospel and told us how happy he's been since he started taking his lessons
-His brother even told him that he's been a lot more chill since then.
-This church is true.
Love you guys all so much, thanks as always for your emails and prayers. They mean so so much every time, even if I don't always respond quick. for those of you that have sent emails, unfortunately you will all be left on read this week because I'm about to be dealt in for another round of monopoly deal.
Adieu
-Elder Winegar
Buenos dias de Durango!! I hope all of you lovely people are doing amazing wherever you might be this christmas season. If you have snow, drop whatever you're doing and go jump into it for me. While there's no snow here, it is still FREEZING. Last night it hit just above 0 degrees celsius and this night its supposed to be hitting below that, so who knows maybe Mexico will do me a solid and give me frost in the morning or something.
The work this week was good as always, but definitely slower than normal. The week started out with E. Sanchez getting thrashed by a killer man cold. We went and got him lots of drugs for that and he was fine after a day or two. We couldn't really do anything because he didn't feel good enough to walk anywhere sick and we didn't wanna infect others. However, he was also "miraculously" able to not be sick anymore at the peak of his sickness so that we could play intense badminton with a bouncy ball in our house. God really is good🙌
Another funny thing about E. Sanchez is that he's an absolute Grinch. I can say this because he gave himself the title. I have been at war with him every morning for the past month to try to play Christmas music while we get ready. He usually ends up grabbing the phone the second I turn my head and, in the elegant words of my buddy E. Lewis, "plays his stupid mutual theme music." So I end up having to blast silent night when he's showering with the bucket.
Speaking of the bucket, we no longer have hot water! We had four days of pure euphoria, but then it went back to being cold. On the brightside, I was able to buy myself a pillow and crocs, both huge upgrades from my previous zero pillows and single shower shoe.
I'm realizing that this email is starting to get long, but I promise you it's only going to get better. This week I was blessed with a super cool experience being led by the spirit. Me and E. Sanchez went out to go knock doors and he told me in his broken English that I was the trainer and had to find a door to knock on. So, I said a quick prayer in my head and tried to just be guided by the spirit. It was really frustrating though, because for 15 minutes, we proceeded to make a huge circle. For some reason, every step I was taking just felt... wrong. I was confused and frustrated and wondering what I was doing wrong. BUT. We start walking past this one street that I'm pretty sure we had already walked past, and right as I was about to say we should go down that street, E. Sanchez said the exact same thing. As we're going down that street, I take a left and then see a house and knock on it without a second thought with complete peace of thought. No one answered after the first two knocks and I thought we were done for, but after the third knock a lady answered! Her name was Jaquilin, and she went on to tell us that she's actually met with missionaries before in aguas caliente, but was forced to stop meeting with them because of her step dad. She was beyond excited to see us and told us to come back the next day for a lesson!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, we have not been able to make contact with her since that Friday, but I'm still super hopeful. I want to testify that I know that this is the Lord's work and that this is his church. He wants to help each and every one of us. If we're patient and have faith, I know that he will guide us to where we need to be. I love all of you guys. Your emails and support have kept me going, especially the ones that have been emailing me every week. Celestial kingdom for you guys ahaha. Go get some hot chocolate, grab a cuddle buddy(optional step), and go watch a cheesy hallmark christmas movie for me.
Feliz Navidad y nos vemos
E. Winegar
Fotoz
4. Me with my best friend
3. Rainnnnnn
2. El árbol de vida
1. Badminton
Buenos dias de Durango
Monday, December 20, 2021
Bueno bueno, que tal homies!! I hope you're all doing so well wherever you might be. This week kinda flew by which was so awesome, but so much happened I can't believe it.
Things are going great out here in durango, the work has been a little bit slow but i should be extending my first baptismal invitation this week!! Im kinda scared out of my mind cause i still can barely understand spanish, but im way excited it should be good. We're also making awesome progress with this lady named isabel that owns a gordita shop. She gave us free gorditas the last time we taught her, so hopefully things keep going well so i can keep getting free food lol.
This last tuesday was probably the most ridiculous day of my mission so far. We were out till like 11:30 the night before with one of the zone leaders trying to find someone that needed go be reimbursed or something. When we finally got back to the house, the ZL tells me that people have told him that he's a little bit of a noisy sleeper. My man ended up being a full on sink garbage disposal with nails being dumped into it, i couldnt sleep that entire night ahaha. On top of that we woke up at 5 so that we could get to all the auditorials and finish at a decent time. Luckily after all that shenanigans i got to take a power nap of a lifetime.
This last friday, however, was probably the best day of my mission. I wad blessed with the opportunity to have exchanges with E. Jenkins. E. Jenkins is an absolute beast. His hobbies include sketching masterpieces, making edm, indie, and lo-fi music, and on top of that he's a collegiate water polo player that also won high school player of the year in california. He took me on tours of this sweet cathedral/church that looked out on all of durango. After we went and made calls in a huge park called guadiana park. After all of that, we went and got freaking burgers and talked to another white guy that was low key anti, but thats okay cause his wife seemed awfully interested;) dont get me wrong we got lots of work done, but God really answered a much needed prayer and blessed me with a breath of fresh air with that exchange. Oh also we started out taking like a 15 minute taxi drive out into the middle of no where to teach a person that cancelled right as we got there, I could not stop laughing for some reason.
As for this blessed p-day, the highlight easily goes to my wicked hair cut I literally just got. Because I have no clue how to speak spanish, I just let the barber start doing his thing. So after 30 minutes of watching John Wick throw knives at people, watching a scary amount of hair being chopped, and for a lovely bargain of 130 pesos, I now am the proud owner of a lovely mexi fade. There will be no pictures of it this week, tune in next week though for some smexy pics.
Spiritual thought for this week is the new youth album. It is freaking amazing. Go listen to it and feel spirit. Dust and I surrender are the best ones no doubt. I'm so grateful for music that helps keep me sane AND feel the spirit. SO so beast mode.
Nos vemos <3
Elder Winegar
sick dope pics
1. Ran out of white shirts
2. Durangooo
3. Me n Jenkins
4. Cathedral
5. 🤠
Mexi fade
Monday, December 13, 2021
Que tal homies?? This week in Mexico was bonkers and boy do I have some funny stories to tell you guys. I love my district and I love my companion! E. Sanchez is so awesome, but doesn't speak any english. This has been awesome for learning spanish, but leads to me often times being very frustrated with him. When I do understand him tho we're best friends. E. Sanchez also loves soccer, Billie Eilish (he was very excited to hear about a new album), and might have a gf, I'm not sure though I'm not the best at eavesdropping in spanish yet.
Mexico is a funny place. Something that makes me laugh is the amount of dogs that chill on peoples' roofs. I don't even know how they get up there but they do, and they usually end up scaring the crap out of me when they go crazy. Dogs aren't the only things to bark in Mexico though. Me and E. Sanchez were walking about, being good missionaries, and said buenas tardes to a guy. He responded by getting in our face super quick, let out a weird zombie bark thing, and then left just as fast as he came. It was E. Sanchez saying "Mexico Check" that truely sent me laughing ahaha. Also, after paying for gas and waiting 4 days for the landlord to fix the boiler, we now have hot water for the next three weeks!! This has been a huge blessing, now we just need to figure out where the water in our sinks has gone, because we have nothing but trickles now.
I can't remember if it was this week at church or last week, but I had my first funny Spanish mess up. Our financial secretary in our ward is named Victor. Victor is super tall, has super good english, and is also super awkward. He's also autistic, and if he's not I'd be very surprised. Either way I love him to death. Anyways, E. Sanchez and I were on our way out and were about to say goodbye, so I said "hasta lluego chavon." I had heard people use it and thought it was like another way to say bro or man or something like that. I looked at E. Sanchez though and he was just completely shocked. Apparently chavon means dummy or idiot. So on one of the first times talking to Victor, I called the autistic guy an idiot. I repented I promise.
This week I had some huge testimony builders. My first week was pretty brutal, so this was amazing to see. On tuesday night, I was not doing well at all. I finally had the thought that I just need to pray. So I got on my knees and said a quick prayer, something along the lines of this sucks, please please help me out heavenly father. And guess what, the next day ended up being insanely good!! My horrible attitude had made a complete flip, my spanish felt a little bit better, and to top it all off, there was the first really awesome sunset that night. All of those might sound like little things, but for me it was huge. The crazy thing too is that, aside from the sunset, nothing much had changed, asides from my attitude. The way we perceive things in our lives can effect our overall joy. It's kinda like the "is the glass half full or half empty" question. I believe that when we include christ in our lives and go to him for help when he need that, he can be person that pushes you into a glass half full kinda life.
Idk if any of that made sense, but that's a scrambled thought that I had this week that really helped me out. Let christ help you out.
Peace out guys, I love you all so much, my companion has been waiting for me for the past 10 minutes cause he wants to go play some soccer ahaha. Your thoughts, prayers, and emails mean the absolute world. Go do good and don't do drugs
-E. Winegar
Song of the week: A.S.A.G (clean)... hopefully there's a clean version lol.
Pics pics pics pics
Or whatever pics i could find ahaha
Week 2: half full kinda week
Monday, December 6, 2021
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
Hola
Hola! Here you'll find Elder Winegar's experiences and thoughts while serving our Lord, Jesus Christ, in the Torreón Mexico Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For Letters 📝 & Packages📦. The Mission Office address is: TBA
