This week was awesome! Almost the entire family of Jesus (see past emails if you don't remember about that family) came to church! The Dad finally came! The only one left was the son this week, but he did come the week before. A friend of the daughter of that family also continues coming to church and is preparing to be baptized soon. We also found another family of inactives this week and they also came to church! It was a happy week for us to see them all there.

   Other than that we also had Christmas! We did a study in the house and took pictures. We also got some great food for christmas eve night! We ate alot of the treats our families sent us, and then were able to skype later in the day which was awesome! 

   

    In other news, I had changes! I am now in.... Piñas! I returned to my first sector! I started here and it's probable that I will end here which is funny (Be "born" and "die" in mission language). I just recently got off the bus to write here and haven't seen any familiar faces but will soon. It's gonna be interesting returning to a sector, as I haven't returned to any sectors so far in my mission! I'm happy to be here though as it's a great area, and the climate is definitely alot cooler haha. My companion is Elder Sorensen from Utah. I'll probably have some good stories and pictures next week!

Have a great New Year!

   Elder Pollock

Hope everyone has been having a Merry Christmas!

   This week we had the baptism of Marilyn! She is the daughter of Monica, sister of Scarlet and the Mom of Justin and Briana( the two littler kids in the photo I sent). I am very happy that we were able to be part of it as it was a great baptismal service! The Mom gave a great message in the baptism, and Marilyn bore an awesome testimony after being baptized. Marilyn used to go to church with her Mom when they were investigators 10 years ago. Now the only one left in the family of Monica to become a member of the church is another daughter, Angie, and her husband! We continue teaching and encouraging them with the help of Monica to go to church. We also taught The Restoration to Monica´s sister who came to visit for a day.

   My package from my family arrived for Christmas this week! Yes!!! I was wayyyy happy to see some AWESOME gifts inside like lindor truffles, beef jerky, chocolate christmas calenders, a USB with mission music, shirt, even a tree and a stocking! Plus a bunch more awesome stuff!

   We found actual cheddar cheese this week in the store(a little rare) instead of the usual mozarella that we always eat, so we couldn´t pass up the opportunity to make homemade mac and cheese. We´ll be eating VERY well this week as the members here are awesome about making sure we eat well for the holidays. I remember the feast we had last year for Christmas and think I might gain a couple pounds this week haha. I sent a picture of our Chocapic Christmas Display, the accumulation of the boxes of a couple months of Chocapic. My companion and I love that cereal.

   I´ve been having a very happy Christmas season and I hope you all do as well! I love being a missionary in the service of God, especially in this season celebrating the birth of the Savior.

Christmas.Mormon.Org

Merry Christmas!

Elder Pollock

P.S. The Monigotes are looking awesome! I´ll try to take some pictures of them throughout the week if I can. They are the paper mechet creations people make around here for new years eve that they put fireworks in and burn. I´ve seen a GIANT Goku, ¨Alien¨, and Ghost Rider

This week was great! We found an awesome family this week. There are a bunch of people living in the family: aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandkids, etc. and they are very receptive! We found them when we felt to come to their house and talk to them. Many commited to come to church next Sunday, and some have already accepted baptismal dates. We also have been teaching another partial member family we found. The mom of the family was baptized 20 years ago and hadn´t gone to church in a long while, while the daughter, Amy, is now 10 and recently came to know the church this week with her Mom. The Mom wants her kids to learn English so we include a little bit of English teaching in our lessons with them. We are also teaching her 14 year old son, Alexander, who doesn´t know the church, but he couldn´t come to church this week because he works to help support the family.

    Monica (the recent converts of about a month ago) has continued very well in the gospel, including taking family history classes! She attends church with her daughter Scarlet who is member, and her other daughter Marilyn who is not member with her two kids. We are currently teaching, along with Monica and Scarlet, Marilyn and another older daughter of Monica who hasn´t come to church because of work. The bishop has the vision of Monica as a seminary teacher for the ward very soon! So we are helping her strengthen her testimony and knowledge for that!

   As for food, today we had homemade macaroni and cheese thanks to my ¨son¨ Elder Brown. It turned out way good! (Though the only familiar cheese they really have here is mozarella so we used that) I continue eating Chocopic daily along with the other missionaries in the apartment. We have been saving the boxes to take a cool photo with out favorite cereal, which i´ll send next week!

   Hope you all have a great week and a Merry Christmas!

Elder Pollock 

   This was one of our busiest weekends in a while! We had the mission Christmas Devotional/Music Program on Friday which was awesome! We the missionaries sang I feel the Savior´s Love and I Stand All Amazed. There was also an entire music program prepared by the mission choir (almost all sisters) that was way good! Jesus´ family attended along with the recent convert Monica´s family. All of Friday was dedicated to that.

   There was also the Saturday´s sessions of conference and we spent that day inviting people to that session and Sunday´s. It was fast Sunday so when we got home at 9:00PM Saturday we did our planning, got ready and went to bed a little early, since our time after planning is usually used eating popcorn or cereal haha plus we were exhausted that day. On Sunday we had the main session of Stake conference. It was an awesome session that I liked alot! The stake had all of the return msisionaries sing in a choir. 

   On Sunday night we had the baptism of Jesus!! I was way happy to see him being baptised. He´s a way hyper and funny kid. The story of how we found him, though I think I´ve already told it in another email... While going to an appointment we felt the impression to turn into a street and knock on a door. We knocked on it and invited the lady that answered to church but she wasn´t interested, so we decided maybe we needed to knock on the next door. For illustrative purposes, that meant taking 5-6 steps since the houses are built right together. On the next door a lady came out and greeted us happily ¨Hermanos¨! She told us her name, Gardenia, and asked us how we came to her door as apparently nobody including missionaries had visited her for a long time. It turned out that she, with her 2 kids and their stepfather that lives there, are all members that haven´t gone to church for almost 10 years! We invited her to church and she came with her daughter! In that next week she introduced us to Jesus who is a nephew, but who she raised and who had been with another uncle for a couple weeks. We have been teaching that family and the Mom and daughter have come back to church! The daughter also has the goal of going on a mission, possibly in spring. We are trying to help the older son and Dad to come back as well. The baptism was a great experience and I´m thankful for the spirit guiding us to that family.

   As for food, this week we went to Carls Jr and had bbq burgers. Way good! Plus Chocopic as always.

  Hope all have a great Christmas this year! Visit Christmas.mormon.org to see a cool video.

Elder Justyn Pollock

This week we were concentrated on finding new investigators to teach. We went out to visit with a member who used to be branch president and he took us to a few inactive members who haven`t come to church in years. When we got to the house of one of them, we found his family which are almost all nonmembers. We taught them the restoration and they recieved it well. It is a cool family! Then we contacted next door and found they are also family of the inactive member, but have never talked to missionaries! Surprisingly, when we said hi through the door, they immediately said ¨pasen!¨ (come in) without even knowing who we are! We taught the restoration there with them as well. A few investigators that live there will be able to come to church this week (though a couple no for work), and they are also a great family!

   I continue to recieve a testimony of the importance of reteaching the 5 lessons to the recent converts and to keep passing by them as the first presidency indicates us to do as missionaries. We continue passing by Monica, who was baptized a couple weeks ago, and this week Marilyn (20), one of her older daughters , came to church! She recently moved back in with her Mom and wants to be baptized in the church as well, which should happen in this month of December!

   Jesus, a 10 year old investigator of a recently reactivating family, came to church with Melissa this week again! The Mom family was feeling sick so they didn`t come today. Jesus came with a small scar on his face from a fall learning how to BMX with his brother. When he first saw me at church the first thing he said was ¨look at this! I got it doing BMX yesterday¨ We are still working on helping the older brother and the Dad of that family to come back to church as well. Jesus should be baptized soon.

   Paul came to church again, and also should be baptized soon this month, though he may have problems with coming to church this month for having to go work with his Mom. 

  For thanksgiving we didn`t do a big dinner or anything as they don`t celebrate it really here haha. So my companion and I went and bought a popular snack here, salchipapa. It`s just french fries and cut up hot dog in a bowl with sauces. We don`t usually eat it because it`s not exactly healthy, but atleast we enjoyed for thanksgiving! haha

   I`m happy to be a missionary! Hope all have a great christmas month! 

Elder Justyn Pollock

 

Salchipapa