Serving with a Smile in...Monterrey!: Just another typical week...and pebbles in his shoes, too!

This week's email was pretty much nothing too much had happened, but I was able to be one with him and I had written about my lesson in Young Women's So, I will include my letter this week too as it will explain him his response back to me. He sounds so great and his pictures that he sent are of him and his companions that were taken to a buffet and treated to a T-bone. You will see that they are not just eating rice and beans. He looks so happy, and for that we are extremely grateful. Enjoy and thank you for following his journey. He always says to tell everyone hello and this week he said that he has learned more and more to appreciate the members and neighbors of the Orchard Fifth Ward. Funny how much you learn when you get taken away from all that is familiar and comfortable from you. Enjoy...

Hello Familia! This week was pretty normal haha. It went by pretty fast, but not much happened! We have a lot of investigators but not many are going to church. So Elder Gomez and I studied hard this week to commit our investigators to church, because its really important for them to understand why we go to church on Sunday. So I studied that a lot this week, and I found a lot

of help in Moroni 6. Where it talks about the Dia de Reposo, or Day of rest! It is a little bit hard in this area, but its possible. The church starts at 9, and its not that far away. That last baptism in this area before us was in October! but its possible every week. Our mission is pushing so that every companionship can baptize every week. So yeah...other than that not much happened! From the pictures I sent, we hit up Sirloin..the buffet here in Monterrey. Wow it was great haha. We are going to start to run in the mornings because we are eating to much haha. but I am happy, and happy to be here in the work of the Lord. I hope you are all well, I pray for all of you all the time. Love you all!

Elder Clayton

My letter to him:

Hey Pal. How are you. Well, first of all today we spring ahead with our clocks. So, I believe we are now on the same time zone again. I'm having a hard time staying awake at the present time, because although it's not even 10:00, it was really 5:00 that I got up this morning to cut fruit for Jordan's homecoming. So, it feels like I've been up forever and am so tired. Not a fan of Daylight Savings time, just sayin...

Today, as mentioned it was Jordan Peterson's homecoming and he did such a great job. He looks so great. He lost a lot of weight and is really quite thin. He had about six of his companions there and it was the usual crowded fun garage party after. They all said to make sure we told you hello. He gave a wonderful talk and that same guy that spoke at Josh's spoke again. He is a wonderful speaker. Letia said that he has a pack with them that he just speaks at all of them. Although we were going to that it started at 1:00 and our church is 9:00 so dad and I went to ours. I'm so glad I did. I was to teach in YW today and in our ward it was the sister missionaries that spoke. AMAZING! The one sister is from Wisconsin and so darling. She told about how her dad had her at age 17 and was a tattooed gang member from LA. Her mother was 15 when she had her. They divorced after about 3 years and had a little one-year old brother. One day the sister missionaries contacted him and he noticed that something was different about them. One of those sisters became his wife and this sister's step mom. She then told about at age 16 she left church activity for about two years. She then talked all about the Atonement and the importance of it and how it is for everyone. Funny and ironic thing is I was to teach on Sunday and it was on Forgiveness. So her talk and the other sister's was on Love One Another and how we need to make certain, they know who much we care and love everyone. Especially through service. We seriously have the best missionaries on the earth. They are amazing.

My lesson was on Forgiveness like I said and I told of the story of the boy who would not forgive his brother for running over his bike. The brother apologized profusely however the brother never accepted his apology. This story was told and then said how this is like a pebble in your shoe. It really won't hurt you much, but to get the benefits of a nice journey, you have to take the pebble out of the shoe and get rid of hit. It turned out so great. This message was a great one. I passed out a pebble to each of the leaders and YW and told them to put that in their shoe, and although it wouldn't hurt them that much, they would feel it and then how much better it would fell to let it go and take it out. Just like repentance and forgiveness.

Never easy, but always worth it and better off. Well, nothing much happened in our week, either. The weather is still unseasonably warm and I'm thinking we are going to get dumped on any day now. Ha-ha. But, I'm happy with all that white stuff staying on the mountains where it belongs.

Well, I will let you get back to whatever you were doing. I love you so much and am so proud of you and all that you are doing. Your pictures last week were so awesome. Love you so much, son!

Stay safe,, and as always...OBEDIENT!

Love you, MOM

eating at the buffet. we went here with the mom of the bishop, they have a ton of money. the buffet alone is 160 pesos, like 14 bucks, we got there and she was like (Elders you cant come to Sirloin and not get a t-bone...haha so we all got one and the buffet) so the total was 1,200 pesos!! like 100 bucks! It was super goood!

Hello mom! Wow that's sweet about the sister missionary! The Atonement is really special, and covers everything. Funny thing about pebbles in shoes. In my last area, it was all dirt roads, not 10 minutes went by and I didnt have a rock in my shoe. it still happens but not that much, its amazing that such a small thing can be such a big burden! Oh and I have worn out my soles in my black shoes! I bought new soles with gel! But, I still have my brown ones that are basically brand new.