Photos

CDMX "Ciudad de México" I took this picture in the center of the city today.

My Zone at the Temple

 A family of recent converts. This hermana just gave birth to twin boys a few days ago.

 We let an Elder who doesn't have much experience with baptisms perform the ordinance. 

It was a good day.

New Friends

Here are some photos taken with my good friends Choncho and Cochino.

Hi mom. Tell Miss Daisy that I am fine. Mexico is entering in the rainy season right now which lasts from May until October so I think my nose will get better. Don't worry about sending me sunscreen or anything. I can buy some here, but you know that I don't like that kind of stuff. Plus by the time a package you send gets here I will already be back at home!!! (No, the Easter package has not arrived yet. I might get it as a 4th of July.) 

Sadly, our good friend Lazaro the turkey does not like us very much any more and always attacks us as we try to escape from the yard on our way to work! He is a pretty feisty little turkey! Every time we have to enter into the house or leave the house, one of us has to fight the turkey off while the other opens the rusty door with the rusty keys! 

My comp hates the turkey and is always fighting it off with a broom and talking bad about it. Every time we start getting close to the house, my comp begins getting nervous because the turkey is going to attack us! But I like the turkey, and sometimes I let it into the house when he isn't close by. Then when my comp discovers the turkey in the house, he comes running down stairs and chases it away. It makes me laugh pretty hard! 

This week we baptized an hermana that is super cool. She works in the marines of Mexico and this week she has to return to her base by the U.S. border. She was baptized on Saturday, confirmed yesterday and received her temple recommend so tomorrow we are going to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead with her! It will be a great experience.

This week we held a stake activity where we turned the stake center into a plan of salvation model. We put missionaries in every room to teach the plan of salvation. In the celestial room the 4 Elders were wearing all white to make it special. (The room actually had more white than the real celestial room in the temple! It was pretty awesome. 

Gracias y nos vemos. Elder SHumway

Volcano Eruption!

The volcano on the right is called the Popocatépetl volcano. Tanner currently lives 25 miles from this volcano. A large summit eruption began around 2:15 am local time on Monday April 18th, when ash emissions and individual explosions in the summit crater increased, followed by a strong eruptive phase with continuous lava fountains that lasted over 2 hours.

During its peak around 3 am local time, a rain of incandescent material fell over the upper part of the volcano, to up to 1.6 km distance, and an ash plume rose several kilometers and drifted SE (away from Tanner). Moderate ash fall occurred in areas such as Puebla city, whose airport was shut down. Elder Shumway reported rain most of the day on Monday.

Photos

My Pet Turkey

I have an Ugly turkey living on my front porch!

 Its name is Lazaro (Lazareth) because he died and came back to life once! 

We had another super hot week this week. The sun here in Mexico City is not like the sun in Oregon. Here, the sun hurts when it touches your skin and burns deeply! Sometimes I feel like a roasting chicken.

We also had a lot more success this week in our area. We found a lot of new investigators and we are actually going to baptize this weekend. We found 2 magic investigators that have been to church quite a few times already. They came up to US and asked to be baptized! We had quite a few investigators in church for the first time and hopefully this week they will commit to be baptized.

On Sunday in testimony meeting an old lady stood up to give her testimony about the living prophet. She also told the congregation that her son had heard the Prophet said that in this month there will be a large natural disaster in Mexico! It was one of those moments when you want to cover your investigator's ears. Then the closing prayer was given by a man who prayed asking God not to let Donald Trump win the U.S. Presidential election! Everyone here hates that guy because he is racist against the Mexicans. Pretty funny.

Pues creo que es todo por el dia de hoy pero les amo a todos y nos vemos pronto!

 Elder Shumway

A transfer!

 My new area is pretty awesome; there are a lot of people in the streets, the ward is great and has an extension that is going to be approved as a branch this month but for now it is still just a group that meets in a house on Sundays in a small town near the mountains.

 However the weekend before my comp and I got here the other Elders baptized 7 people and now have left us with zero investigators. Opening or white washing an area means that we don't know anybody, so we did a lot of walking this week and it has been SUPER hot here for the last two weeks. My nose is sooo sunburnt that it is bright red like rudolph and I can peel skin off of it every day. I wouldn't be suprized if I got skin cancer on my nose one of these days. Today we went to the temple as a zone, but because it is super far away it almost took up the entire day. It was well worth it. I did initiatories and a session for the great grandparent of my comp.

My comp is a funny guy. Of the 3 Chileans that have served in my mission, all three of them have been my companions so I think that someday I will have to go visit Chile. My comp is 25 years old because he finished his college studies and is a professional doctor that specializes in pregnancy and baby birthing. It is very interesting to talk to him about his career, and he talks with every pregnant woman that we see in the streets. He is very mature but a little awkward too. Hopefully together we can have a lot of success. 

I am going to work extra hard in the next few weeks to see if we can baptize the investigators we find before I have changes again!! 

Thanks mom for all you and the family do for Miss Daisy and Let her know that I will see her soon!

 Gracias Elder Shumway

I made tamales from scratch! (Then ate them! From whole corn to my belly!)