May 31, 2022

 Hi! It's me again. Hope you're still paying attention after all this time. :P

It's been quite the week here in Mexico. First up, lots of service! We got to help out a lady in the ward, cleaning out her garage space. Lots of interesting things in there. For example: 4 Massive coils of Barbed Wire; An entire bathtub; More spiders than I could count; And possibly the largest collection of record disks I've ever seen. Definitely a pretty fun time, despite gaining two pounds from how much dust I was covered in afterwards. :P

Also, we went to visit this guy we met on the street a week or so ago, and when we got to his house, he called down to us from the roof saying that he couldn't have the meeting, because they were moving furniture from the second floor down to the first. We offered to help, and he didn't want us getting our clothes dirty. Fortunately, he lives four doors down from us, so we just threw on some T-Shirts, and helped move furniture for half and hour or so, while chatting about the church. Good stuff.

Other than that... Just more of the usual, talking to interesting people on the street, getting cussed out by people on Facebook (Apparently meeting new people is *not* what the platform was designed for?), and doing our best to get people to just get married already. (Somehow, that last one is harder than everything else we do. :P) Anyway. Prayers for Gabriela and Erica would be much appreciated, because paperwork is literally the only thing stopping them from getting baptized. Thanks!

To round it all off, the reappearance of an old regular: Spiritual Thought! (Yes, it's been a while. No, it's not because I went apostate (Well, maybe a little ;))

This week's thought (Stolen, once again, from my mother, who is wonderful): She sent me an email a few days ago, talking about the reading from Come Follow Me. Specifically, the part where they march around Jericho a bunch of times to knock the walls down. Pretty simple story. But the point she made was this: Which of the seven times they walked around the walls was the time that made the walls fall down? Was it the first time? The last one? Or was it the combination of all of them? Just like our lives, sometimes, we try things over and over again, and it just doesn't seem to be working out. We may wonder why God isn't letting us have the success He promised us. But maybe, those first few tries were all part of the plan, and it is exactly what we needed to be successful the next time. So just think about that, when you're going through the wringer. 

Have a great week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

Photos:

- Pyramids, Take 2

- Suits and T-shirts - They should change the dress code or something

- My companion and I

- Just I

May 24, 2022

Hey everybody! Right out of the gate, this week was pretty packed. Lots to do, and lots going on. But let's get right into it, shall we?

Everything was normal last week, until Thursday. After that, everything just kind of went all over the place. On Thursday, we had Zone Conferences. In week 6 of the cycle. Very unusual, since we normally have those around the week 4 mark. But it was a pretty good conference, in my opinion. We talked a lot about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and how we can better teach it to the people in our areas. Definitely a helpful topic, since teaching people about Jesus Christ is sort of our entire job description. :P 

The chaos continued on Friday, when I got a call early in the morning asking me to train the coming cycle. I, of course, accepted. My companion also got a call telling him that he was going to be a Zone Leader the next cycle, so we went into the transfer call already thinking we had it figured out. Or so we thought. But that comes later. On Saturday, we had a stake wide event for the youth who are preparing to serve missions, we did a sort of 'Day in the Mission' kinda thing, with a small training about how to share the message of the Restoration, and then going out to visit members, and do some street contacting. Definitely a fun time. But it did eat up a pretty big chunk of the day. And the transfer call, which is supposed to be Saturday night, didn't end up coming until Sunday morning. Which is where the surprise comes in.

Sunday morning, we get the call from the Zone Leaders, who then inform me that, on top of training, I'm also going to be the District Leader. Didn't see that one coming, I'll admit. But hey, should make for an interesting cycle, that's for sure. 

Anyway. That's the rundown on what's up in Mexico City. See you all next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

May 17, 2022

If I was a betting man, I'd put good money on this last week being the largest amount of time I've ever spent in a hospital. :P No worries though, it was mostly just some studies and picking up medications and such. Nothing too crazy, fortunately. But it did make for a pretty busy week, between hour long drives to and from the hospitals, spending a lot of time in other areas contacting, etc. A pretty good week, though. This week is the last of the cycle, we'll get the transfer orders on Saturday (Assuming they don't arrive late again. :P ) 

Exciting upcoming things, we're having Zone Conference this week, which is a bit out of the norm, since that usually takes place in week 4 or so. And this is week 6. Then again, President is basically packing his bags, he's only got about a month and a half left before he ships out. Kinda crazy. We'll have to see what the new President is like. Who knows? Maybe he won't hate floral ties. 

Anyway, I've gotta run, we're about to go to a Brazilian Steakhouse for lunch, and I'm rather excited. Hopefully it lives up to my expectations, I'll be sure to let you know next week. I think that's about all from me for now. See you around!

- Elder Blankenbiller

Photo(s):

- Bird

May 10, 2022

Well, first and foremost, an apology, I also didn't take any pictures this week. :P

But moving on from that... A good week this week! We've got quite a few people to teach at the moment... but they're all stuck behind the immovable wall that is the Mexican legal system when it comes to getting divorced from previous spouses. Unfortunately, that's gonna mean that getting baptized is going to be a goal for a bit farther down the line. But we're gonna keep doing our best to get them motivated and excited in the meantime. 

Other things... There are quite a few cucarachas here, which was a bit of a surprise, because I don't think I've seen any before now. But here they are, swarming the streets in the early evening. My kill rate is pretty decent, but I think my companion has me beat. :P 

We're going to the hospital tomorrow so we can figure out what's going on with my companion's health. So all prayers for Elder García are much appreciated. I'll let you know how that goes next week (Assuming he gives me the go ahead). But yeah. Just hanging in there with that for the moment. Fingers crossed for good news tomorrow. 

Anyway, I think that's gonna be all from me this week! See you in the next one! And Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. You're the best!

- Elder Blankenbiller

May 3, 2022

Alright, so a couple disclaimers up front: I didn't get any photos this week, so sorry about that. And this email is going to be very short, because I'm both pressed for time, and not really feeling great at the moment. So you'll have to wait until next week for a bit of a bigger email. That said, we return you to our regularly scheduled program.

This week went pretty well, we were able to find a few new people to teach through various sources, and hopefully we'll be able to get them to Sacrament Meeting this week. We're still on that grind, trying to find as many people as possible, and also getting things going with the members here in the ward. The relationship with them... could be better. We're working on it. :P

Also, funny story from this week: On Friday, the mission coordination meeting was held at our chapel. So all seven stake presidents from the mission, our mission president, and an area seventy all showed up at our church building to have their meeting. We had no idea beforehand that they were going to be coming, so that was a bit of a shock. Guess they have to have those meetings somewhere, though. *Shrug* 

Anyway, that's all for me this week! See you around!

- Elder Blankenbiller

April 26, 2022

 Hellllllllo everybody! 

Pretty exciting stuff this week! We had a baptism! Hermana Clara Gallegos got baptized on Sunday morning, nice and early. 9:00am, to be precise. And since the font takes about four hours or so to fill up... we had to wake up at 4:30 to go fill it. Yep. That was fun. I'm not sleep deprived. You're sleep deprived. Anyway. :P The baptism went really well, Hermano Martin (Clara's boyfriend) baptized her, and then after the baptism, proposed. Definitely a new experience. I think that's the first proposal I've ever been at, which is surprising, since I did spend a whole semester up at BYU. ;) Speaking of, Congratulations to all my newly married and engaged friends! (Making me feel old, but whatever)

Other things: We had a Blitz here in my area on Friday, which went remarkably well. Turns out, street contacting is just kind of overpowered. I think between the six of us in our district, we banged out about a hundred fifty or so conversations in an hour and a half. And we got a bunch of numbers to call. So that should go towards increasing our teaching pool nicely. We're going to have another one in my old Area, Aguilas, on Wednesday. Should be fun. Plus, right after that, the plan is to start Companion Exchanges, and I'll also be going to Aguilas. Nostalgia seems to be on the menu this week.

And to wrap things up, a tale of Mexican things. There's a little store about half a block from the chapel, which makes it very convenient when we're hungry. And the store has always been blue. Until yesterday. When they painted it red. Why did they paint it red? Because they contracted with Coca Cola. And apparently, one of the requirements to contract with Coca Cola is that you have to paint your store red. So now it's red, I guess. :P Just thought that was kinda funny. Anyway. See you all next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

Photos:
- They're both from the baptism *shrug*

April 19, 2022

 Hi everybody! Me again! (Though... who else would it be?)

So, as mentioned last week, I am in a new Area, in an old Zone. Makes for quite the throwback when you meet people you've met before. For example: The stake president was in the ward I served in six months ago, and he was in our temple session today. Small world, huh? Or small city, I suppose. But that was cool. And he gave us a ride back afterwards, which was nice, because riding the metro is fun, but not when it's like ninety-something degrees outside. The metro becomes a literal oven. (Hmm. Possibly a solution to the fact that we don't have ovens in our houses... then again, probably not. :P )

We got to go to the temple today! Which is always a great time. Makes me laugh a little bit, because I'm realizing that for as long as I've been old enough to go to the temple, I've had a temple within about a twenty minute drive of where I live. Spoiled, I know. But hey, I've also gone to the temple pretty often. So I'd say I'm taking good advantage of the situation. (Go to the temple. You know who you are. :)

Also this week: Semana Santa! (Because here, the party is all week, not just on Easter Sunday ;) Seriously, everybody was either gone on vacation, or had people visiting who were on vacation here. Made for quite the party scene. Too bad we don't get invited to any of that stuff. Oh well. Next Easter, I suppose. But Semana Santa was great for missionary work, because everyone who was actually still here in the area was out *looking* for someone to give them an Easter message. Because apparently religion is only important at Christmas and Easter. :P We did get a lot of phone numbers out of the whole thing though, so we'll see how that goes. 

Speaking of, when I got here, we only had one person in teaching. And she has a baptism date lined up for this coming Sunday. So. Most of our focus has been grinding out street contacts, trying to find people in Areabook, and Facebook, and whatever other resources we could scrounge up. And we've got a lot of people who have potential to talk to this week, so hopefully that turns into something. But yeah! It's business as usual. :)

Hope you all had a great Easter! See you next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

craig.blankenbiller@missionary.org

Photos:

- A visit to the pyramids! Kind of...

- Ramen place that I remembered from six months ago

- And the Ramen served there

- My new companion and I

- Temple trip!