12-9-09

As of 12-3-09 Elder Mayberry is home. He has been suffering from headaches for about 3 months and after many discussions, phone calls, and emails it was decided with our Stake President that he needed to come home for a medical release to see how the headaches could be resolved.

It may be a sinus infection, may be something in the environment(they have a mold problem and dust everywhere except Monterrey it sounds like) or it could be tension headaches. Brendon had a CT last week and is on some pain meds that don't take away the pain but seem to be helping bring them down to a level that can be tolerated.

We are all hoping for a quick recovery...especially Brendon because he's already wanting to get back out and finish his mission. He said it feels weird to have everyone with white skin and speaking English. It's been amazing how quickly he's learned Spanish and how has already forgotten English.

11-2-09

Dear Family,

Wow it sounds like a lot is going on there, this week was pretty tough, I
was sick a lot. I am taking medicine for my sinus infection, and so I really
hope that is helping, I have had some of the worst
headaches this week. I spoke with the doctor of the mission and he is pretty
worried, he thinks its a really bad sinus infection, and if the medicine
can't get rid of it I will probably have to have surgery. we had interviews on Wednesday, and I told President Mendoza that i was having problems with my back, and that it would be better if I was walking, and so he told me, okay just hold on for another week and a half, and I will get you an area on foot, and its gonna be in
Monterrey so that you can be there by Doctor Spencer.

The weather this week has been crazy (and it hasn't helped my heath) its been
hot, cold, hot, cold, everyday, and its gotten pretty annoying. But its not
extremely hot anymore, which is nice.

Well I can't really report the work for this week because there wasn't
any. On Tuesday we did crazy divisions, and I got put with Elder Doniz. He
totally reminds me of mick. That was the day that I was the sickest and so
we didn't work, we laid in bed all day and talked about soccer and cars and
our houses. It was pretty funny, he talks, acts, and has the same sense of
humor as Mick. Well for Halloween, we went to the house of one of our recent converts and watch The Other Side of Heaven, it was way good, and there was a lot of people there at the house, and everybody really liked it. Dia de
Los Muertos, they don't celebrate it here as much. we ate the bread which was
pretty good. We took some photos, but nothing more than that.

Oh okay, so I did a inventory of all of my clothes, my shirts are totally
fine, my pants, well I need new ones, I am gonna look here in some of the
markets for new ones, and my socks I am starting to wear them out but I am
still fine. My pants are my only problem, from wearing them out in the
bikes. I think I am doing pretty good though.

I think that's all for now, try and write me if you can. I love you all,
later.

Love
Elder Mayberry

10-26-09

Dear Family

Well to start out with the best news, we had 2 baptisms yesterday, and we are going to have another this week so that was pretty fun. The one baptisms was pretty hard because she had had a lot of problems and so the interview was about an hour and a half and our district leader had to call President Mendoza, but everything went through fine.
But this week was pretty bad. We didn't teach many lessons and we didn't get many new people, and well almost all of our investigators fell, and so now we don't really have anything to do, and we have to contact all day, which never is fun. But hopefully we will be able to find some new people this week.
My companion and I are still getting along pretty well, but in general everything is fine. We have taken a lot of photos this week so I am going to send you some of them. I have me usb memory stick and I am putting all of my photos on it, that should be a lot safer. I think I will buy another one in a couple months I can put all of my photos on it, and I can send it to you so that you have lots of photos, I will continue to send photos every week too.
Thanks for sending me the package, if you can throw some photos in there, I really want one of the family in the barn, and ya I guess I will just sit here and wait for it to arrive.
I have been having some problems with me back, its been really really tight, and I was think about what the doctor said, about how I might have problems on the bike. I am going to talk with President Mendoza in my interview and tell him that walking would be better than on a bike.
We had a funny story this week, we had to drain the font so we could refill it for our baptism, and well the tank was filled. We had to drain the tank by running the sprinklers for 3 hours, so that we could drain and refill the baptismal font. It took a long time and it was pretty frustrating but, when we figured out what we had to do it was pretty funny.
Its been kinda hard, the mission isn't baptizing at all right now. A couple weeks ago we only had 12 baptisms in the whole mission. So the leaders are putting a lot of pressure on us to commit people to baptize more, the numbers really are not improving at all. We will see what happens here in the future.
Thanks for everything. I love you all a lot.

Bye
Elder Mayberry

10-19-09

Dear family,

Has it been really cold there in Washington? Does Jensen still enjoy football when its raining? Its been hot, cold, hot, cold. Its been kinda annoying I sent you a picture of one day when it rained pretty hard, that's what happens when the roads are dirt. I lost all my pictures again, but this time it was my memory card. It keeps telling me that I need to reformat it, and if I reformat it I will lose all of my pictures so I don't want to reformat it, but I don't have any other choice. If you haven't sent my package yet send the memory card SD that you bought for my when I was in the mtc, the memory card I have is horrible. I bought a usb memory card so I am gonna start putting my photos on it every week until I get the new memory card from you.

This week was pretty good. We have 4 baptismal dates in total right now I am pretty sure all of them will go through, but we will have to see. We had a lot of problems so we didn't get to work as many hours as we should have but we still came up with a lot of lessons and new investigators. I think we should be able to see a lot of baptisms this transfer, and really I didn't think we would.

On Wednesday we helped the bishop move into a different house, it was pretty fun. His mom cooked us one of the best meals I have ever eaten. It was tacos cooked in tomato sauce, and then with eggs, and salsa and cheese. His family likes this one thing called chapas, and they are small crickets cooked in chili and then dried, and you put them all over your food, and its really really good.

We didn't really do a whole lot. Its been kinda of a hard week because all pictures are gone again, and I had to buy to new inter tubes for my bike in one day, but I am hoping for a good week this week. I hope all is well for you guys, good luck and love you lots.

Elder Mayberry

10-12-09

Dear family,

Well I will start with the request first. Gold fish and trail mix from Costco. I was really crazing those to things the other day.

Well we had a pretty good week, we had a lot of bad luck. I broke two pedals this week on my bike and my companion broke his bike and I popped two tires. We were short on lessons. We seem to only be able to work in the night, because nobody is ever home during the day. That has been very difficult, but we are going to baptize and mother and son. and we found a lady who is a member that just moved here from Mexico city that has a lot of children that are not baptized, so we are hoping to maybe be able to baptize them too. The people here are pretty great, but they all work in factories, and there hours are always like 8 to 8 or weird hours like that, so we have had a hard time finding new people. We had a ward party Saturday night that was pretty fun. There wasn't a ton of people there, but it was good. They had the Mexico El Salvador game going, and then one of the brothers told me United States one, and we ate a lot of barbecued chicken. It was a good time and I got to meet some more of the members. There are a lot here.

I briefly told Mackenzie about our neighbor. He is pretty crazy, he sits out in front of his house all day watching soccer. His wife works in McAllen. He is always talking about Joseph Smith and we are always trying to get him to go to church but he just wants to make jokes. He always shows me his American microwave food and ask me if I am hungry. Its funny, but sometimes its annoying. I will have to take some pictures this week.

We are going to try and relax today. That's all I can think of for now.

I love you all. bye

ELder Mayberry

10-5-09

Hello family,

Well my companion right now, his name is Elder Aguilar, he is from the state of Mexico, its by the city of Mexico. He is pretty cool, we get along really well. He has like 18 months in his mission. We didn't work super hard last week, but we are hoping to work harder this week. But we get along really well and were having a lot of fun.
One of the other missionaries is from Guadalajara, but he was living in Arizona with his family left for his mission, he is in the same generation as me, but he was in a different area of the MTC so I don't know him very well. The other missionary is a district leader and he is from Puebla, and he has quite a bit of time in his mission. After a week in this area, umm... well its dirty. Most of the roads are dirty, and after it rains mud, and well the roads that are paved have dirt all over them, so they are pretty much dirty roads too. Really nobody has money, most people live in very basic cement houses or wood houses. The people here are a lot better than in my past area. There are a lot of members, and quite a few are active. Our bishop is way cool and his wife is American. She watched conference with all of us American missionaries in English. She is pretty funny. She is from Virgina, and speaks Spanish with a Virgina accent. But the best thing was we ate with them on Sunday. And we ate a hamburger potato combination thing, which was really good, potato salad, and best of all, brownies!!!!!!!! It was my first time here in Mexico. I ate a lot of brownies.lol. I was so happy.
But ya conference was really good. Elder Holland talk was very direct, I think Saturday morning was the best, honestly. Priesthood was really good too.
luckily for us the weather seems to be cooling down a little bit. I hope because it was really hot the first couple days here. but I am re-adjusting.

ooooh Some of my companions in the past. I have been trying really hard to learn a lesson of some sort from every one of my companions and leaders, and I have been able to. My zone leaders right now are pretty cool. They are both Americans from California. But there are a lot of people in my zone that I don't know. One thing that I have learned is that both of the companions have to be willing to work together.
Well I think that is all for right now. Write my back here if you can. I hope everything is going good for you guys. Good luck with the pigs. I love you all.

Bye
Elder Mayberry

9-29-09

Que bueno! haha or that's good!

Kaden! he ate a pound and a half of fudge! wow that's a lot, wow you need a bullet proof, flame proof, magic proof box to keep him out of stuff.

Well I am writing you today because I got transferred again, I am back in Reynosa, I am right by the airport. I have definitely decided that I like Monterrey way more, its still pretty hot here in Reynosa, and there is a ton of dust, I don't understand how there is so much dusty here. But its a good area, the people are good. There are about 200 active members in the area. Which I have never even heard of that here in Mexico. So I am excited for that. The area is some what ugly, the house is alright, its pretty small and there 4 missionerias in the house. But its good I will adjust here soon. I really hope to go back to Monterrey soon.

Well I am pretty sure there isn't a Walmart around here. The Mexican people almost never have ovens, so I can't bake a cake. Yesterday when I packed I couldn't get all of my stuff in my bags, I don't know what happened, but some how I am gaining to much stuff. I don't know if I really want to buy a CD player, because almost always everybody else has them, so I don't think I would really need it. My last companion had a ipod and player thing, but about 7 weeks ago, president said we couldn't use ipods anymore. So then my last companion didn't have music anymore. But my companion right now has one.
well I think the results of the MRI where that I have a sinus infection. My companion told me what is was in Spanish, but I couldn't really figure it out. But I am pretty sure it was a sinus infection. I still have a little bit of a headache, but its a lot better. I don't think the heat will really help though.

James came home! wow that's awesome, is he really tan? I want to hear his Spanish, the Spanish they speak there is cool.

We will go and watch conference this Sunday, it will probably be in Spanish which will be kinda hard, but its okay. It will be hard more because its very monotone. We watched a young adult fireside about 2 weeks ago, and I understood everything, but the voice was putting me to sleep.

Well thanks for the letter, I hope I don't melt in the heat. lol. Good luck with everything. Bye


Love,
Elder mayberry