Elder Hirsch Mission Emails

  I have had a great Christmas week. We have been doing plenty of finding, teaching, and baptizing. As we travel by combi, legs, or bus, the Lord has blessed us to encounter people to share the gospel with. As we teach in lessons, we are sure to hit hard that people need to do three things:  read  the Book of Mormon,  pray  to know of its truth, and  go to church . Those, and receiving the lessons, are the bare minimum requirements for baptism, but they are also essential steps in the Doctrine of Christ in order to grow spiritually. We all need to follow these steps.   Among the many people we have taught, Iram, Grecia, and Ernesto have been a pretty big focus. Despite it being difficult to get the signature for Ernesto to get baptized because their parents are in prison, it all worked out and we baptized them this last friday.  We got locked out of our apartment last night (christmas eve) because we left our keys inside and everyone's houses...

  I woke up very early last Monday, and tried to get dressed and collect my stuff as quietly as posible in order to not wake up my roommates but as I was collecting my suitcases I accidentally woke up Elder Tanner, and, on my way out the door, he gave me a sentimental goodbye. I eventually found myself on a very fancy bus to Puebla. I watched the landscape slowly fade from busy city to peaceful forests. Or at least, that's what I would've seen had I not promptly taken a nap. Thankfully, I did wake up in time to witness a suprisingly green forest within mountainous terrain. The first people we met when we got of the bus in Puebla were the mission President and his assistants. I didn't know that the missionaries there were just the assistants to the president, and when I first saw them I thought one of them might be my companion. We then went to the mission office to actually meet our companions. I had comvinced myself that I would get a latino companion, but I didn't. El...

  I have enough conversational Spanish that I want to go into the field now, despite how nice the training center is. We still had classes this week, but since we've covered all the basics of Spanish, this week has not been as busy.  Yesterday I went to the immigration center to get my yellow card so I can legally stay here for two years. The bus ride was crammed, but definitely still fun because of the interesting conversations, and foreign land just outside the window. When we arrived, I felt like I was properly in Mexico for the first time. I was standing on a sidewalk surrounded by Mexicans, and there was a man selling churros on the corner. The process in the immigration center wasn't very interesting, just standing in lines and waiting, but I talked to a Jewish french guy in one of the lines, and talked to some Norwegian dudes while I was sitting in a waiting area. I got rewarded for the whole process with a yellow card and a couple churros. When I got back, I took ...

Adam Hirsch   < adam.hirsch@missionary.org > vie, 2 dic 2022, 15:46 My first day in Mexico was exhilarating and exhausting. I love flying, but catching a flight is stressful. The moment when I found the dozens of other missionaries waiting for our flight in the Dallas Airport was very relieving. On the plane, I sat next to a Mexican doctor woman who attended some kind of arthritis convention in the US, and was now returning home. Because of its unbelievable scale, Mexico city truly was a sight to behold from the air. Neither of the suitcases I brought rolled very easily, and the airline further broke my largest suitcase. Thankfully, the CCM rep at the airport helped me and a few others get brand new suitcases from the airline, so bringing a crappy suitcase was totally worth it. They collected all the missionaries in one part of the airport, and led us to the CCM buses. The buses had a huge open area under them, meant for luggage, and I was asked to go into the large storage a...