All Be Super-Duper Wellzers!

Entire Mission Conference to hear Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Seventy.

Hatz

Hello World!

Wazz Up?

All be super-duper wellzers here in my little world of Hidalgo.  We had a great week of work and, of course, the best part was our mission conference with Elder Clayton and Elder Valenzuela of the Seventy.  We’ve been dropping all our investigators that aren’t progressing and that’s been the hardest thing ever, but it’s what’s needed in order to find people who are really ready to accept the gospel. 

Big News!!!!  My comp is going home soon so we have permission to go do a session in the Mexico City temple!!!!! We are planning to go Wednesday!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, yayayayayayaayayayaya!!!

The mission conference was amazing!  It was my first time to be with the whole mission at one time!  I saw all my friends and old comps and hugged so many elders and I loved it!  I learned a lot of stuff, but really the thing I want to share is that if we start something good, we should finish good.  For me, that can be my mission.  I started really good with faith and lots of prayers of faith and I really worked my tail off to learn the language and be a good missionary.  Now that I’m in my final months, it’s my time to continue good and then finish good without falling or lacking, just stay good.  I love this concept and we are right now trying to apply it in each and every lesson we teach.  Start it good and end it good so the Spirit can do His part.  I love my leaders and the things they have to teach me so I can be a better me and a better instrument in the hands of the Lord.

I also had my every-3-month interview with Prez.  He talked about a vision.  I need a vision and my investigators need a vision.  My job is to get that vision of who we can become by applying the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives.  I love it!  Goals are a big part of that and I’m still not too good with goals and all, so I’m gonna start working harder on that.

We sang at a baptism this Saturday and it was fun!  I’m hoping a friend will post the video on FB so you all can see it.

One more week of the change (transfer period)!  We gonna finish it good!

Love you all,

Shoe shine for $1.

My new friend!!

Yay!! Papa Palafox Was Baptized!!

Papa Palafox's Baptism

Papa Palafox and his family.

It’s been a week--a hard but good one!  We fought all week long with the adversary.  It’s so crazy how hard he works to drag down these gospel hungry investigators that we have.  It truly is a fight but I know we will win for we have the Lord on our side.

We finished the week off with a great baptismal service for Brother Lorenzo Palafox.  I call him Papa Palafox. His wife and kids joined the church one year ago and he has now finally joined them as members of this great church!  It was a wonderful service and we had a special musical number that we did with the sisters and our ward mission leader.  The Spirit was super strong and the other investigators that attended the service cried.  It was awesome.  We sang the primary song "When I am Baptised" or whatever it is in English.  What a wonderful experience. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a baptism--too long.  I’m glad the streak is over.  I want more. 

Life is good--too good.  I am so blessed.

Love,

Elder McClure

P.S.  Elder Clayton comes this Saturday!  I’m so excited!

Brother Aviles (and his wife) baptized Papa Palafox.  

I'm a Happy Boy!!

Saying goodbye to Elder Gomez!

She kept me company through the sessions of General Conference!

Hey guys!

Let me tell ya, I’m a HAPPY BOY even though some rough stuff happened this week like throwing up ALLLLL night. Let me explain.

Tuesday I got a call from the APs (assistants to the president) and I was informed that my companion was going to be Special changed out of my area and that I would be receiving someone else.  This made me nervous.  I don’t like surprises like new comps out of the blue.  Well, that’s what I thought … until I found out who my new comp was!  His name is Elder Crawford and he’s my buddy ol’ boy!  He was the neighboring district leader and we have become good friends over the past month or so.  Long story short, he goes home in just about a month and I believe I will be with him till he goes home.  It was like a dream come true ... the only thing that could have made it better is if I had been made junior comp and he be the District Leader.  But it’s ok, I’m just happy!  

SO, with a new comp, we started working our little bum-bums off and after a sweet zone conference with President, we decided to set a high goal for baptisms that we will have together before he goes home on May 10.  With a high righteous goal in mind, we have continued working and at the moment we have 6 people with a set baptismal date!  WOOOOOOOO!!!!!  Let’s just hope it keeps getting better!  So yeah, we are pretty excited!  We work really good together and have the Spirit with us and with that we have seen awesome things this week!  Papa Palafox passed his interview and will be baptized this Saturday at 5pm. YAY! 

Oh, so the fun part, my good old ZL Elder Condie from ID came with us and we stayed as a trio for all of General Conference so he could watch it with us in English!  We had a good ol’ time and he slept on our huge beanbag that we have at the house.  CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!  The bad part is that the night before I got super sick and threw up alllllll night long with other little surprises thrown in there every couple hours.  I almost died.  But back to conference, IT WAS AMAZING!!!!  I love them talks we heard!  Being a missionary during conference is so different and so much better!  As you hear the talks all you do is think about your investigators and each thing that is said is an answer you know they are needing!  All you do is hope that they are taking good notes and understanding the message the same way you are. Oh yeah, and they all took real good notes!  We had 6 investigators at the conference and I saw many pages of notes in all their hands as they left after the session!  I love General Conference!

There’s so much to say but really, just like always, time keeps me from going into the juicy details.  But it was good--love it.

I’m excited for this week.  We are just gonna keep being awesome.

All is well. All is well.

Zone meeting with new companion, Elder Crawford.

A Sweet Week ... Strawberries and Brain Worms

100 Balls for the Easter Egg Hunt

Let the Hunt begin!

HAPPY LATE EASTER Y’ALL!

WOO, it’s been a sweet week!

First things first, turns out that strawberries grown here in Mexico are really bad for you and if you eat them you get worms growing in your brains … or something like that … so I’ve already stopped my short tradition of malts in the morning L  How sad.  I really love them strawberries.

Woo, so this whole last week was called Holy Week and it got pretty lonely here!  Everyone was on vacation and went to the beach or other places and we were left alone walking in the streets with just about nothing to do.  BUT IT WAS AWESOME!  We still worked real good and taught lots of lessons with the few people that were still here. My Highlight of the week was the GIANT EASTER EGG HUNT WE DID FOR THE GARCIA CHILDREN!  Yeah, they are my bros.  These children are our neighbors and are our off road tricycling buddies and I just love them so much that I decided to blow a LOT of money so that they could experience the true joys of an Easter egg hunt.  The problem is, plastic Easter eggs don’t exist here so I had to buy 100 balls and then cut them open and stuff them with candy!  It was epic!  Then on Saturday we went like 3 houses over to the chapel and hid the eggs all over the church grounds.  A half hour later we had 8 or 9 little kids ready to do some looking and finding!   Anywho, it was sooo fun and everyone was so happy and on such a sugar high ... no complaints … no complaints.

I had a goal to finish the Book of Mormon for the 2nd time in Spanish on Easter Sunday and I did just that.  It was even more special because this time around I marked every time it named one of the members of the Godhead.  In doing so I was able to grow closer to God.  I really realized how much the scriptures talk about God and how much He loves and blesses his children.  It was wonderful.  I figured it was good to finish on Easter Sunday in remembrance of the joy and hope I have, thanks to my Savior Jesus Christ.  It was an incredible experience and has boosted my on-going testimony of the Book of Mormon.

The other miracle on that beautiful Easter Sunday was our lesson with Emma. I love Emma. She has such faith and a while back she told us she would be baptized once God had confirmed it with her.  She says that God always responds to her in 3s.  So we waited patiently and kept teaching her and yesterday, Easter Sunday, she shared with us that she received her 3rd confirmation.  WOOOO!  So we set a baptismal date for the 16 of April!  I’m so excited!  And also Papa Palafox is filling out the forms for his baptism.  We set it a week back because of General Conference and so his date is the 9th of April! Miracles are a happening!

General Conference is almost here!  I can NOT wait!    WOOOOOOOOO!   Blessings all around!  I’m so jacked.   Can’t wait to hear the prophet’s voice and hear people talk in ENGLISH!

Love you all,

Thanks for the prayers.   I can feel them.

Elder McClure

Melon Bash

Horse Meat Taco.  Yummm!

Angel fixing my pants!

Man I Love Mexican Fruit!

Making Apple Pie

Fruit, Baby!

Hey guys!

It’s cold today and I loveeee it!

This week was pretty awesome, might I say.  Let me explain.  We got Papa Palafox to say YES! OK let me reword that.  Papa Palafox with his own free will and choice said to us that he is ready to be baptized.  Haleluya!  We set the date for the 4th of April, but we will see cuz that’s a Monday.  It might end up being the 3^rd, but either way, HALELUYA!

Earlier today I was saddened to realize I didn’t take one picture throughout the week.  We were just so busy teaching like madmen that I never even thought to take out my camera and take a picture! But that’s OK because we worked like madmen and also, I took pictures today to make up for it. Pictures of me with my fruit.  It’s FINALLY mango and strawberry season!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Every morning I drink a strawberry banana smoothie and at night I eat me my mangos.  Man I love Mexican fruit.  So don’t worry, I do have the pics for this week now.  Me and my fruit.

Since it was the first week of the transfer, all the district leaders had a leadership training by president and it was wow good.  President is worried about how some missionaries use their time.  So he’s crackin’ down on us and teaching us how every second counts.  I don’t think I’ve been a time waster on the mission, but it’s still a good reminder and now I’m even more determined to use every moment I have to serve the Lord. 

This coming week is a little scary.  It’s "Semana Santa" for all them Catholics here and it’s pretty dangerous.  We have extra rules just to be safe and really I’m in a really nice area, so I’m not too worried, but it’s always exciting.  I’m just glad it’s my last Semana Santa here in Mexico.

It’s really hard to think of what’s been happening, I just woke up from a 2 hour nap and my brain still isn’t in full function, but I’m healthy and happy and doing good.  No complaints, life is good, what more could I want?!

Enjoying some ribs!

A Killer Week!

Saying good-bye to my zone leader.

Brick of nuts and carmel.

Hot dogs!

Waz up my friend!

Wow, it’s so fun watching these weeks fly by!  When things are great time flies, and when it’s hard it just flies by!  It just keeps flying!  AHHH!

We had a killer week to end the cambio!  I worked my bum-bum off and it RAINED and I got SOAKED!  And right now isn’t the rainy season so everyone is thinking the world is going to end!  Just so y’all know I don’t have transfers and I’m staying in my beautiful area called Hidalgo!  We are finding more and more youth to teach and I’m loving it!  They just understand things!  We had 4 investigators at church on Sunday, one of them being Emma who is the bomb! We taught her the Word of Wisdom this week and she was so bomb about it.  She likes her coffee but understood what she has to do and why.  She said she’s done with the whole coffee thing--just like that--no resistance, just pure faith and a good attitude and the readiness to do it.   I love prepared investigators!

What makes me saddest is that we lost 2 amazing sisters today with transfers!  Hermanas Padilla and Mendoza are awesome and incredible missionaries.  I’m gonna miss them like crazyyyy but I’m excited to see who the new ones are and ready to welcome them into the district!  We´ll see what happens.  Our district meetings have always been Monday night but Pres. just changed it so now they are Tuesdays at 9am.   It’s a big change for me and it’s gonna take some getting used to I think. 

We had another area attack in the area of my zone leaders and it was really fun.  I went out with my bff, zone leader Elder Valdez and we contacted like crazy.  We found a new family for him to teach and then returned to the chapel to eat hot dogs.  I ate 4, but it was the only food I ate that entire day so I don’t feel AS bad.  Hahaha. 

Really I’m just loving the teaching right now because of the people we get to visit.  It’s finally starting to really, really heat up here and I got really sunburned this week even though there was lots of rain too.  Let’s just hope things keep getting better and better!

My District.

My Zone.

We're teaching this kid.  He's a nut!!!

Off-Trail Tricycling!

The young adults - my neighors and friends.

Hey Friends!

All be well here in Hidalgo!  We worked our bums off all week long and taught a bunch of lessons and found 4 new people to teach!  WOOOOOOOOOOOOO   That’s what I’m talking about!

We have a few people who are progressing, like Hermana Emma--just like my niece Emma who I love so dearly!  I think just for the name she’s going to have to get baptized!  hahahahah.  No, she’s a wonderful lady and loves to read the Book of Mormon.  Each lesson is just so good and intense that we find ourselves running late to the next lesson.  But it’s worth it.  I love good investigators.  They make me happy!  And you know what else I love?  When after an intense lesson and they understand everything and they’ve been crying the whole time and then afterwards they tell you that you’re an angel.  Man I love it. 

Yesterday I did some insane off-trail tricycling with the neighborhood gangster kids and man we had a blast!  We sure enjoy the kids around here.  They always wanna play!

We had an area "attack" in another area and it was super intense and we taught this lady who’s been inactive for like years and years.  Throughout the lesson she cried the whole time and then we asked her to say the prayer at the end and she told us she hadn’t prayed in a LONG TIME.  Then she prayed and it was the most beautiful prayer I’ve ever heard.  It was incredible.  Wow, what fun it was to be in that lesson!

After that crazy awesome lesson we went with the member who was teaching with us to his house.  He’s a professional massage dude and wow I had the most intense massage of my life.  The good news is my back doesn’t hurt anymore!  Wow, I love massages. 

Anywho, lots of fun and good stuff going on around here.  I just keep pluggin’ along. 

All be well.

Love, Elder McClure

Makin' eggs with my PEPPER!
Riley couldn't get pepper in Mexico so our neighbor sent him a bunch!