Zacatlán de las Manzanas

Hey y'all! How are you all doing? 

I've had a week with a lot of firsts, and it was a great week! On Tuesday we had the changes meeting and I met my companion! So my comp is named Elder Dominguez and is from Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua. He´s an awesome Elder, and has really surprised my of how prepared he is. If I didn't know I would say that he has at least a few months in the mission. He´s never afraid to do anything, he talks to everyone and teaches really well. I feel very blessed to be with him. We are in the area of Zacatlán, which is one of the three branches of the mission. We´re pretty far out of Puebla. From the bus station it takes about 2.5 or 3 hours to get here. However I love it! Its super pretty out here and I like the town a lot. Our area is huge however, there is one part that takes 4 hours to get to because the roads are pretty bad, but we've been here in the main town for this last week. Maybe this week we´ll go check our some of the other ones. It has also been a little difficult to open area. We've gotten lost a few times and one time at night haha. However the people here are nice and help us out.

So on Wednesday our first day in the area we helped out the Branch President, Pres. Cordova clean up a little shop that he has. Also, Pres. Cordova is good, he´s an ex-missionary that served here in Puebla and in this area and came back and got married. But that shop was super dirty. The floor was also made of wood, and it was rotting. We had to start taking out the floor. We also saw a parade if like the whole town that day for the Mexican Independence day. Thursday we had a zone conference with Elder Valenzuela who is an Area Seventy. It was a powerful spiritual conference. But we went to the conference really early and got home really late. We´re pretty retired from the other parts of the mission.

Mexican Independence Day in the rain

Friday we had a day of normal work. We've been working on finding the investigators that the other Elders left behind and getting them progressing. We had a good lesson with an investigator who accepted a baptismal date but didn´t look too convinced. We´ll see how she progresses. Saturday we got to know the area better (AKA we were lost much of the day) and had a lesson with some recent converts who are awesome. They were so happy to see us. It was a really good lesson. Sunday we had church in the house of prayer (its like a mini chapel) and about 60 people showed up. It has a whole different feel than a ward does. Sunday was also really good because we had 4 lessons that day.

Beautiful Zacatlan

Yup, I¨m really content to be training out here. It's a really cool experience. Oh, we also share the area with Elder Hammer (ex-assistant who's a great elder) who is also training a new elder as well. I´ll have to take a picture of us 4. Have a good week!

-Elder Hartvigsen