A Few Days Late

From the mission president's wife:

Sister Fillmore,

I'm writing a quick note to you to let you know that Elder Fillmore is fine but they had a zone activity in Guanajuato and didn't have a chance to write. You should hear from him tomorrow. And also, he is just an awesome missionary. We are so blessed to have him in our mission.

Sister Williamson
*So grateful for other moms in this world -SF

We went to Guanajuato for a zone activity Monday and got home way late and when we got home we had interviews with president so yeah it was a long long day. President gave us permission to write though so here I am:) It was sweet though, we went to a mummy museum and visited the city and its super sweet, hopefully i can serve there one day. And bad news though is that I lost my cord for my camera :,( I cant charge my camera or upload fotos. We´re going to the Tiangis this week though to see if we can find one there and if  not I think I´m going to sell my camera and buy a new one. Hopefully I find a charger, haha. But this week was good. My district of 6 beat the other district of 10 in our zone in a contacting competition. And my 6 was actually 4 because one companionship is fried and they don't do jack squat. But the 4 of us killed it this week and it was a great time and we found a ton of new investigators so I cant wait :) this week was also really nice because we've gotten a little rain every single day so its nice to have a change of weather :) I cant believe Ive been out 7 months, its going crazy fast! I'm glad everyone is doing well back home but I´m kind of bummed Blake hasn't done his papers yet. He needs to hop on it because the mission is so rad. So I was thinking of sending a package home but I have yet to find a post office place here in Salamanca so I might have to wait until I get transfered:/ it´ll be sick though, But yeah, we got permission to write home and say we´re still alive so here it is:) I love you so much mom!<3 Thanks for everything! Keep being you:)

Con amor,

Elder Fillmore :)

 

*Blake started his mission process the next day

Salamanca or Smellymanca?

Hey friends and family! All is well here in Salamanca, except for the smell that is. Here in Salamanca we have the biggest petroleum refinery in all of Mexico and it smells wonderful. Sometimes I want to walk around with a clothespin over my nose but that´s unprofessional so we don't do that.  But seriously that´s the only bad thing here. We already having success here. We started teaching a family of 4 and they told us how much they love this gospel and they also came to church this week! If all goes well we will be able to baptize them this change! We also met an old lady named Ingracia and she loved our message and our first lesson with her we invited her to be baptized and she accepted! The field is white and ready to harvest here in Salamanca and I´m excited to be a part of it.

So this whole District leader thing is different. I had to give my first district meeting on Tuesday and I felt way unprepared but I felt the spirit guide me in my words and I know that the Lord was helping me. I know that the Lord makes weak things strong and that He will help us in all aspects of life if we ask Him. He has already helped me tremendously and continues to do so everyday. I´m so grateful for this gospel and am so glad to be sharing it with others. 

Thanks everyone for the prayers and support, I love you all!

P.s. sorry no fotos this week, I left my cord in the house :(

Lider de Distrito

Hey everyone! This week was a great one but do to transfers today and the traveling I dont have a ton of time. So last week we passed Olimpia off as a reference but she wanted us to keep teaching her so we got permission and we continued with the lessons and she gort baptized saturday!!!! Such and awesome experience!

We got changes yesterday and I´ve been called to Salamanca! I took a bus for two hours to Irapuato and then another bus for one hour to Salamanca. It´s like celaya but smaller. And it smells awful because of all the gas companies here. I´m also District leader now! Excited to work here in the new area with my new comp, Elder Wierna. He´s from Argentina and has about 6 months in the mission as well. Should be a great time here. 

Thanks for all the support! Love you all! 

Elder Fillmore

Week of Tracting

 The call me the cat whisperer

 Me goofing around in the Catholic church

Me, Elder Reyes, Elder Marshall, and Elder Morales feasting

Hey everyone! All is well here in the good´ole México. This week was very busy with tracting and we contacted a ton of people. Since we dumped a lot of our old investigators, we´ve been searching for new ones and there have been a few days when we have no lessons planned so we just go and knock doors ALL DAY LONG. I love it. We get to meet a whole bunc of people. Some super old and cranky. Some Catholic that tell us we´re going to hell. Some drunk and invite us to drink with them. But every once and a while we find someone who actually is normal and wants to listen to us and we get to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them and it´s so worth it when we find that one. This week we were blessed to find 10 new investigators and I´m excited to see how it goes this next week with them.

Bad news however is that one of our investigators, Olimpia, who we´ve been teaching and we have a baptismal date with her for this week actual live a whole 10 or 15 feet out of our boundaries. So unfortunately we had to pass her as a reference. Super bummed to have to do that but the missionaries in that area are great and they´ll do a great job finishing.

Nothing else too exciting. This is the last week of this change so next week I may be in a new area. I´ll let everyone know what happens next week! Thank you all for the prayers and support! I love you all! Have a great week!

Con amor,

Elder FIllmore

The Recovery

Hey everyone! I´m feeling much better from last week so thanks for all the prayers! And I´ve learned my lesson to never eat bugs again.

So this week we dropped a lot of investigators because nobody was progressing but we were blessed to find a handful of new ones who are way more prepared! We found Olimpia and she already has a baptism date and is ready to go. Unfortunately her family is super hard core Christians and don't like us but we´re still teach her and trying to find time when they're not home. We also found Militon and he came to church with his daughter yesterday and he says he feels like this is the right church! I´m excited to see what happens these next few weeks he before changes.

Today we went to the centro and took a lot of pictures but this computer is trash and won't let me upload so I´ll send them next week. Thanks for all the support! Sorry for the short letter again this week, we´re busy. Love you all!

Elder Fillmore

One Fourth of the Way

Hey everyone! Well, I´ve been out for 6 months now and holy heck and the time flown by! I don´t have a ton of time today but that´s fine because not a lot happened this week. I did divisions this week with Elder Reyes. He´s our zone leader and he´s awesome. It was a weird experience though. When we got to his area, someone told us we could come over for dinner. Elder Reyes told me it was weird because they were investigators and never want to talk to the missionaries, let alone invite them over for dinner. But we went. Worst dinner ever. They just put a big bowl of chapulines in front of us and well, that was it. I´ll send a picture of what chapulines are. Yikes. But yeah they made me quite sick and we spent the rest of the week in the house throwing up. I´m doing much better now and I´ve learned my lesson, haha. Well, I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Fillmore

 

Slow and Go

 The dogs love me

 Makin´it rain with that mensualidad. Dont be impressed, it's less than $150 in the U.S.

 District bus ride

Elder Morales, Elder Reyes, y Yo chillin in Costco

 

Hey everybody! Hope all is going well! So nothing exciting this week. We had a few rule changes on Wednesday and now we can be out later teaching investigators which is nice. This week Elder Morales and I looked for new people to teach and we found an awesome family that lives on the edge of our area. They are way into our lessons and they said they want to be members and we´re stoked. Only thing we have to do before that is get them married... Easy right? Haha we´ll see how that goes in these upcoming weeks. Also this week we went to a lot of less or inactive members because we have A TON of them here. And it was good to see 5 of them come to church this week. Hopefully they continue to come. We´re trying to reactivate members in hopes that one will be called to be bishop because the ward is really struggling without one. I´d like to see if we can get a bishop here before the next change but who knows. Nothing else too exciting happened this week. We lost our keys one night and look for them for an hour. I´m stupid and they we´re in my bag the whole time. "Buen hecho Elder Fillmore" -Mi compañero. jaja. But yeah hopefully with these new rules we can teach more investigators this week and get perhaps get them to come to church.

Thanks everyone for the love and support! I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Fillmore