Week 5. Entering Week 6. Final week of the Transfer

I have had a great time this transfer! Elder Elton is the best! One of my favorite transfers!

Monday: So we went to the dentist this morning. Elder Elton was having some pain in his mouth. Everything was good. We then did studies, laundry, email, and shopping. We had lunch at our apartment then went to the church building to play sports. We played volleyball! We then had dinner with the Chavez family. A tradition that they have involves these Extremely Hot Pickles. They are super hot and the tradition is for new missionaries in the area to eat at least one. Elder Elton and Sister Hubert both ate one or two. Elder Tyler and I hold the record for eating 8 each! Then Sister Hubert challenged me. She said, "Elder Baker, if you eat 5 pickle slices at once, I will buy you a big bag of Swedish Fish." So I then began to pick the pickles I would eat. They made sure they were the biggest. I will include the video. So it wasn't very hot. I think its worse when you eat them one by one. So I will be getting some Swedish Fish very soon. After dinner, we shared a message about charity and service. Their challenge is to do a chain of charity. For every act of service, they get another link on the chain. This follows the scripture Mosiah 18:21 in the Book of Mormon. As we serve one another, we will have our hearts knit together. We then had a less active on our list that lives very far away. So we took a nice long drive only to find that the house doesn't exist. That took up the rest of our night.

Tuesday: some study then we had car inspections! We then went with a member to do some service at a women's shelter. We did some painting. We finished our studies then visited Alfredo. We had a nice lesson with him. We are teaching him the lessons over again so we taught the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had dinner at the apartment then had a meeting with a member of the Stake Presidency. We are working to more fully coordinate the work between the members and the missionaries. We then visited victor the bee man. No bees but he does not want to learn anymore. Unfortunately, we encounter this where people no longer desire to hear our message. We then visited Maneli and had a nice lesson with her! Can't remember if I shared this before but Daniel and Maneli had their baby! It is a baby girl! Her name is Noala and she is so cute!

Wednesday: Meeting! We drove an hour up to Silver City to have our zone meeting. We gave a training and had some other missionaries give trainings as well. It went really well. After we got Little Ceasar's Pizza the drove home. On the drive back we drove through this huge rain storm! It was crazy! Not as bad as the one right before I left that canceled the youth pool party. That one was way worse! Anyway, we pass through it and went to the Quintana's house. They asked us to help cook dinner. We actually did it all. Elder Elton and I grilled chicken steak and fish. The Hermanas made a salad. It was a fun experience! My first time grilling! So we grilled and we had no idea what we were doing and Hno Quintana was letting us figure it out for ourselves. We also grilled Nopales, or cactus paddles with cheese, and potatoes too. It turned out really well! The steak ended up like jerky but the chicken was awesome! After, Hno Quintana taught us a wise lesson. Even though they provided all the food to cook and the fresh garden, not many people have the same luxury. He wanted us to know what goes in to making a dinner and how long it takes. He is so wise and a great teacher. We then visited a less active family and read from the Book of Mormon with them.

Thursday: Today we started with service for Presidente Rico. It was a surprise! We went over with tools and the Hermanas to help clean up his yard. He has a ton of weeds in his yard and we put a good dent in them. We cleaned up a ton in 2 hours. After we did studies and had lunch. Daniel and Maneli weren't home for our appointment but we did meet with the Castro family. We are going over the missionary lessons again. We then saw another less active family. They are doing ok and we went over the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They had some really good questions! We are helping them overcome some challenges right now. We then met with Alfredo and read the Book of Mormon with him. Dinner with the Renteria family was great! Then we had the soccer activity. Elder Elton and I got there early to set up at 6. Soon after it started raining a bit. We didn't mind so we just started throwing around the frisbee. Then the rain came down like crazy and we got soaked to the bone. We were persistent in waiting for people to show up. Around 7:30pm some people showed up! We played with Danny and Hno Nicoll, both members. Then a friend of Hno Nicoll, George, came and played too! So it wasn't a failure! We were soaked, sweaty, and stinky though.

Friday: We did studies then we went to the Quintana's farm to do some chile picking! I ate a couple along the way but we picked a ton of long green chile! Then we went inside for lunch and a huge monsoon hit! In other parts of Deming there was tons of property damage. Mostly due to the marble sized hail. We then spent the afternoon inside to do our weekly planning. We had dinner with Hna Torres then visited Oscar. We read Alma chapter 44. It is a war chapter and we understand more how God blesses those that do their part and that stand up for liberty and freedom. The good guys, Captain Moroni and his army, have armor. The Lamanites do not. Basically just a Tarzan-esk piece of cloth. That doesn't really end well for them. There is a great object lesson by a brave soldier and we learn more about the preserving power of faith. We finished the night with more weekly planning

Saturday: All our studies! We then had a great lesson with Daniel and Maneli about Priesthood we tried to visit another family after but they weren't home. We then went with the Hermanas to sing to an old member. He is so funny and sweet. He is the one that called me fat. We then had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation with the same less active family we visited on Thursday. Again, great questions were asked and we helped resolve some doubts. We then had a great dinner with the Nicoll family. After dinner, we went and taught a lesson to the Castro family then we helped them cut weeds in their yard.

Sunday: Studies then church. It was really good! We participated in Primary and got to do some word puzzles. Then in the 3rd hour we talked about preparations for the Pioneer Day activity. After church we drove down to Columbus to get the table that belongs to the church since we stopped having the group meetings. We also saw a very interesting "monument" on the way. We came home and grabbed a quick bite to eat then hit the pavement. We went to a street and met some really nice people! We have some return appointments so we will see who becomes new investigators.

Here is the video of my extremely hot pickle challenge. No I did not throw up. No real side effects.

Best Quote: "President Passey is going to kill me if you die!" - Hermana Hubert