Because He Lives

March 16, 2015

First big news: Like He is the Gift, the church is releasing another initiative (but for Easter) on March 28th called Becausehelives. The video will go out on that date, though since we're on missions we get special privileges, I've already seen it, and it's a really good video. Also on April 5th, General Conference Sunday and also my birthday, YouTube's sole advertiser will be a 15 second version of the video. Spread the word!

We also got official word that our mission will be getting iPads in late spring/early summer, so I'm stoked about that. I realized the other day that I only have 20 or so days being a teenager, which sort of blew my mind.

This week was kind of rough on missionary work. As a district we lost 5 baptism dates. We had to drop Ivan and his family since they said they don't have time for us, and our "golden" investigators, Jose and Santos, were busy when we came by on Friday. They said they would call us when they had some time, so we're really hoping that's not code for never come to our house again.

The Rios family with Giovanni (9), Lizzie (11) and Lizet (13) went with their dad this week, so they weren't able to come to church, and they weren't back when we had our appointment

. 

I did something stupid this week. After playing basketball with some kids, one of them said "if I make this shot you owe me $5". I said I don't have $5 to give, which he took as OK. He made it, so I said if I make a shot from half court you owe me $5. I made it, and then a little competition got started. At one point I was in the hole $10, but finally when we were even I said I had to go. 

Hope you all have a great week in the real world.

Investigator of other elders with a baptism date the 28th

Habitat for Humanity helping make houses

Football, basketball, and a big, fat, sharp toenail

March 9, 2015

We had an incredible week as far as missionary work goes. Right now, we have 10 people with a baptismal date, although since only 1 of them came to church, there is only 1 that can actually meet that baptismal date of March 27. He's a super cool 8 year old kid named Giovanni. His two sisters weren't able to come to church, but they came to the FHE activity we had last night at the church. Ivan and his family still haven't come to church, and we have no idea what we're going to do. 

Instead of knocking doors one day at a trailer park like usual, I convinced my companion to let me ask some kids if we could play football with them. They said yes, we played for an hour or so, I got tackled into a wet spot of grass while I was wearing my white shirt and dress pants, and then after messing around for awhile we talked about being missionaries and going to church and stuff. And...boom, another investigator and a bunch of kids that think we're dope. Later we played basketball when a 12 year old girl came up with her crew and asked if we'd play against them. So it was me and and a bunch of 8-13 year old guys against 5 12 year old girls that were surprisingly good while my comp talked to the kids waiting to sub in. 

My traumatic experience this week was when I was walking in my room and stepped on a pin. But it wasn't a pin. It was a big, fat, sharp toenail. Have a great week.

Size 18 shoes

10 commandments at the Catholic church across the street 

That's why you don't break the rules and be stupid.

March 2, 2015

Once again, no time, so here goes:

We had service giving out extra food from the food bank, and I was in charge of onions for the second week in a row, so I smelled wonderful for the rest of that day. Though I did get 48 free Popsicles, so it was worth it.

We also helped serve tables and do dishes at a charity event held by the catholic church right across the street from our own. It was kind of ironic to have Mormon missionaries in a catholic church, but no one said anything negative. 

A story about karma and obedience on your mission: one of the elders in our zone decided that he wanted to buy a PSP with his freshly deposited MSF money. He already owed another elder $35, but he dropped $135 on this PSP at a pawn shop, with the promise that if it didn't work he could bring it back. Either it didn't work or he changed his mind, but he went back and tried to get his money back, the guy refused and denied he said that, but he would buy it from him for $50. He left, went to 2 other pawn shops that said the same thing, and so he sold it for $50. Welcome to day 1 of the month with only $15 left. That's why you don't break the rules and be stupid.

I also always almost run out of money, so I've vowed to have at least $30 at the end of this month.

We found 2 new investigators last night, and they seem pretty freaking golden to me. We'll follow up Tuesday with reading a part of and praying about the Book of Mormon. The investigator of the other elders has only had 2 cigarettes in the past week, so he's doing phenomenally well. Fasting works. I only have one picture, so I'll send it next week with hopefully some more.

Staying in Greeley

February 17, 2015

For this next transfer I will be staying in Greeley with Elder De Leon. It should be pretty alright. I think I can describe my relationship with De Leon like this: from January 22 to February 1, he/we used 1000 text messages and approximately 1800 minutes of talking, and I didn't have the phone the majority of the time, if you get my drift. So yeah, he likes talking to people that aren't me a lot, but at least I get to practice listening and understanding Spanish. I've noticed I'm a lot better at eavesdropping now since he probably assumes I don't understand anything. Not entirely true.

I was incredibly frustrated this week with Spanish since no one could explain to me why a certain thing was said the way it was, so after much digging through the internet, I found part of my answer in an online document for a Spanish class. Spanish 406 to be exact. That made me feel a little better, but I'm still frustrated.

The craziness for this week comes from one of the recent converts in our ward hiring a gangster in Mexico to beat up someone who used to bully him. We're still working on that one.

Because of postal problems, write letters and packages to me the same but with "CO Fort Collins Mission" before everything else, so:

Colorado Fort Collins Mission

Elder Kennon Bacon

500 Hillspire Drive

Windsor, CO 80550

I hope you all had a wonderful Single's Awareness Day! Let's just say it was not the best thing for me to go to a ward Valentine's Day party where a lot of quite attractive less actives showed up. Kind of rough with the girl trunkiness and all, but whatever, only like 18 months more. Have a great week!

Haircut by another missionary

February 23, 2015

I don't have a ton of time, so here are the highlights:

The pictures I'm including this week made me laugh so hard.

We did a fast for one of the investigators some other missionaries have, and it was awesome. He is having a hard time quitting smoking, so whenever I thought about how badly I wanted food, I thought of how badly he's going to want a cigarette but that he, like me with food, will have to just fight that desire. It made it a much more powerful fast.

Sometimes agency is frustrating, like when people don't come to church. Or when I slack and don't do a whole lot of finding when we have next to zero investigators. I'll do better this week.

I got a haircut by another missionary, and it was his first time (I have a lot of blind faith or something).  It turned out pretty good given the circumstances.

My (ridiculous) haircut selfie

 Our stereotypical Hispanic family pic.

 Artwork at the Valentine's Party 

Freddy's baptism!

February 9, 2015

First things first: Freddy got baptized! And his mom came! It was a great experience to be a part of. I did the confirmation this last Sunday(of course in Spanish) and it was pretty freaking scary, but it went well. It was at least understandable, and the parts that need to be exact like his name I did correctly.

Freddy and his mom with all of the missionaries

Freddy and I

The problem, however, is that the way Freddy and his mom came to the baptism is that they lied to his dad about where they were going so that they could both go (which I neither mentioned nor recommended). He found out that they weren't actually at dinner with anyone, and then...he split. They aren't sure where he went, but he took is stuff and left. It's kind of a constant drama movie with that family, so we're trying to figure things out with them, like finances and stuff like that.

On a bittersweet moment this week, there was nothing better than being in my warm room chillin in my thermals with a scented candle burning studying the scriptures. That room has become my sanctuary, since the rest of the apartment either smells like death or is freezing since they leave the windows open to kill the scent (which doesn't really work since all of Greeley stinks). I don't know how to tell the other companionship that maybe it stinks because 1) the dishes in the sink (shoutout to my college roommates! :) and 2) they probably shouldn't leave a bloody dish of open meat in the fridge and slightly molding onions on the counter. I'm still debating on how to bring this up.

This week and the last week I was working on memorizing my patriarchal blessing, which has been such a blessing in my life. I love being able to go through that in my head no matter where I am. If I can't fall asleep at night, I just go through it until I fall asleep. If you have your patriarchal blessing and don't have it memorized yet, I'd recommend doing that. 

The last question I have is does anyone other than my companion want to be my valentine? Actually I might already have one. That little girl I was talking about last week, Melody, is pretty much in love with me, and she's the most adorable 3 year old I've ever met. I have pics this time too, so now you can all know what I'm talking about.

 $3.46 of the best Chinese food ever

Melody

Besties for life

Flattering pic of my right arm

Thrift store bargains

February 3, 2015

I don't have a ton of time, so I'll try to keep this short (I failed). This might (will) be all over the place. 

At dinner there were some peppers on the table, and everyone but me had had one. They all said (honestly) that they weren't that spicy and encouraged me to try one. Mine might have registered on the Richter scale. They asked me if I was ok and all I could really say was "I'm ok, please give me some milk right now". It was not a good experience. They all tried a part of mine and agreed that it was a lot hotter than theirs were.

Later that same night, their granddaughter who is about 3 was messing around with me, playing games, jumping on my back, etc. She was standing with one foot on two different chairs at the table, she jumped up, and then fell straight through onto the ground. She wasn't hurt, but she was embarrassed, and so she went under the table and started to cry. We had to go, but I asked her if I could have a hug first. She came out from under the table with red eyes and blotchy cheeks and gave me the cutest hug ever. She is so adorable. I'll take a picture of her next time we're over there. She's basically all the female affection I get, so maybe that was why I liked that hug so much. 

I saw a Lamborghini this week. In Greeley. I've never seen so nice of a car in so ghetto of a city. Unfortunately, it was when we were driving, so I didn't have enough time to take a picture.

We came to the realization this week that the entire world hates Monday the most out of the days of the week except missionaries, which for the most part is their favorite. Just another sign of us being a peculiar people.

There were a lot of highlights this week, but one of them was definitely getting a suit jacket for $.25 and a full suit including a vest for $2.00. I searched the entire store to try and find matching pants for the first suit jacket but to no avail. I'll keep looking in thrift stores for the second piece of my new score and hope that I don't get any diseases from them. I'll definitely be dry cleaning them first.

We found out that the mission boundaries are going to be expanding in April to include Casper and Riverton Wyoming, the furthest of which is a good 7 hours from the mission office, and they do have Spanish work there, so I may be getting banished at some point on my mission.

The work this week was a little difficult. Freddy's family is giving him an incredibly difficult time with getting baptized. At first, his dad said he didn't want him to get baptized. They had a family talk, and his dad said he could if he found out everything about our church first but his mom still couldn't even though she wanted to. Then his dad found out that we teach English class to the Spanish members and nonmembers and said that we don't sound like a "real church", like his church (Catholic), but that we sound like an institution. What kind of church would want to help educate its members and help in the community anyway? Then he said that Freddy could only get baptized, but that was it, he couldn't go to church or anything like that after. If that's not hypocritical, then I don't know what is. If you're going to be in a church, you live it more than one day of your life, more than 1 day in 7, more than a few hours a day. You live it, always. 

After that it changed to he can get baptized but he'll have to "pay the price", which he never went into detail about and just left it up to Freddy's imagination (all of this we have found out through phone calls since when we went over to talk to them as a family only Freddy was home and we haven't seen him in a few days). The final straw was today when Freddy's mom told him that she thought it was a sign from God that his dad was upset and that she wasn't going to go to his baptism. That was incredibly discouraging, to hear her go from wanting to get baptized herself to now not supporting her son and even telling him that she doesn't believe in his decision. We are currently trying to set up a time to have everyone there so that we can just have all of it out in the open and talk about why they hate us and all of that. The language barrier is probably a good thing for me right now, since I would probably just end up telling them how I feel about their irrationality instead of saying what I should to help make everything better and smooth things out.

Well I think I've vented sufficiently about that. Freddy still has a baptismal date for this Saturday at 4, and I'm really hoping that it goes through. I'll keep you all posted.

My two new suits

 Our fail of a jumping pic as a district, going high priest style.

Actual pic as a district.