Merry Christmas!

 Hey everyone hope you guys are all doing well and having a merry christmas! I mightve delayed the email a bit so you guys all get the best christmas present ever(this email ofc) ((jk i just totally forgot to write it monday😅)) anyways not much haopened this week again haha but there were some highlights, the work is really really slow here for christmas and everyone we contact either isnt interested or is only here visiting family and they just want to speak english with me haha!

Highlights!😁

Went to texas roadhouse again🤠

Zone con with baller food(fire🔥)

Intercambios w elder trejo

Played basketball for p day with a bunch of elders🏀

Im playing way too much ping pong🏓 (watch out grandpa and justin)

Christmas gift exchange with the zone!🎁

Spiritual thought:

"Be ye therefore perfect, eventually" 

This is a baller talk given by president holland and an awesome reminder to just keep doing our best and trying our hardest every day, because we wont ever be perfect until our savior comes again. Give it a listen because its such an amazing talk!

Thank you to everyone who wrote me notes and sent me emails this past week for christmas, you guys are the best!

-elder ericson

Inside joke of the week: "howd you get the wolf stuck up there?" "Idk i just threw it 😅" we took like 20 minutes trying to get that little thing outof there haha and he never knew anything ever happened hahaha!n

Miracle!!

 Hey everyone hope you guys are doing well! This week was pretty rough haha my comp has been pretty sick because we still dont have his card to pay for his food from when we got robbed and we dont know when itll get here, then i think i got food poisoning on saturday and that was terrible haha didnt sleep much and that bathroom has definately seen better days😅

Miracle!! This friday we walked past a guy (whos name is jesus david) and about 30 feet after my comp said hey weve got to talk to him and i was like okay so we turned around and went and talked to him and he wanted to learn more and he even accepted a baptism date! His date is january 4th so lets hope he comes to church this next week! 

Saturday miracle! We talked with one of our friends named jesus perez lopez and we put a baptism date with him for the 4th of january as well! Hes so dedicated to be baptised its insane, he wants to be baptised so much that he bought a different house he can live in so that he doesnt have to live with his girlfriend and he can get baptised! 

This week was good for the work but really hard for me and my comp haha weve both been really exhausted both physically and mentally, but the work is progressing and im really excited for this coming week! 

Spiritual thought!

This ones been on my mind a lot lately, i just finished mosiah in the book of mormon and a verse in chapter 24 verse 14 stuck out to me a lot, for a little context this is when alma the elder and his people are taken into bondage by the wicked priests of king noah. It says, "And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions." Even when we have the hardest weeks or days in our lives there is always hope through our saviour jesus christ and our loving heavenly father. We can accomplish everything through christ. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week!!

-Elder Ericson

Interviews

 There wasnt too much that happened this week im ngl because i spent 4 days traveling to qnd from my area because we had interviews with the mission pres and his wife(they were baller and theyre such goats tbh) so we worked in our area for 2 days this week haha had some really cool lessons but noone came to church so that was muy triste but its all good theyll come next week!

Highlights!

Ate at texas roadhouse again and learned snow by zach bryan on the guitar so thats fire. Played a bunch of chess with my zone leader, and took a whole lot of bus naps so that was baller!

Spiritual thought:

I invite you all to read or reread the living christ, the testimony of that declaration is so powerful and you can feel the spirit and power of the words and i want to add my testimony to it. I know that jesus christ lives and he is our savior, in and only through him can we be saved and i know that he loves us. Jesus christ lives! I hope you all have a great week and sorry this emails coming a little late again haha!

-elder ericson

Bonus inside joke of the week

(Im a lobstaaa iykyk and the farmers tan from the missionary attire is so horrendously bad i have no idea what im going to do about it haha)

143 For Forever

 Sorry this email is probably going to be very short haha and sorry its coming late again but i love you all and hope you had an awesome thanksgiving!

The day after thanksgiving (which was just a normal day here) we had a piñata at one of the members houses to celebrate my birthday a few days ago so that was awesome and we had 6 elders there that came to the fiesta so that was awesome too! After that we had intercambios in san felipe with all 6 of us and my comp and our zone leader put a baptism date for the 21st with our friend conception! (And she came to church on sunday too so score!)

For p day we played basketball with like 15 elders in the state of san luis and it was so so fun and we got to play on 10 ft rims too so that was fun as well, my muscle memory kicked in and lets just say i had a few buckets haha so that was awesome!

Spiritual thought!

The importance of the book of mormon in our lives.

The book of mormon is one of the greatest blessings that we have in our lives and i am realizing how much i took that for granted while ive been gone. The book of mormon has so many answers to any question we could ask and completes the gospel of jesus christ. Take time this week to read the book of mormon and i promise you your mind will be opened to things youve never seen before!

Also shout out to my guy gage vance for his baptism! You a goat bro!

Thats it from me thank you to all of the messages ive gotten from everyone it makes my week! Love you all!

Elder Ericson

(Inside joke of the week is 143 for forever iykyk)

Playing Ball

 This week was pretty good but the work is still progressing pretty slowly haha! Itll start picking up soon though. We had our first person come to church in person which was sweet! His name is isidro and hes awesome and he wants to come to church this coming week too!

Highlights!

Played basketball for the first time in 2 months!🏀🏀

Played a bunch of skull king☠️👑

Taught a few elders how to play the card game trump♠️

Had a watch party with 2 whole zones for cambios(im in the same area with the same comp) 📺

Ate way too many eggs🐣🍳

Played some air hockey, ping pong, and crud with a bunch of people🎱

Learned stick season by noah kahan on the guitar!🎸

Had my birthday(lowk really mid but its all good haha)🎂

Finally got my halloween package(thanks mom)🎃

Cambios didnt change hardly anything for me which im a little sad about but its okay haha we will keep pushing through and this transfer will be better than the last! It was really fun hanging out with a bunch of missionaries from the zone and getting to have a lot of fun with them was so awesome! 

Spiritual thought:

Scripture study has become one of my favorite things to do out here on the mission, especially atudying the book of mormon. One of my favorite scriptures that i recently read is alma 37:6-7 "Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."

Im not sure if ive shared this before but i invite all of you to think on the little things that you can add into your life to come closer to god because the little things will stack up over time and you will start to see major blessings and strides in your faith by doing the small and simple things. 

Lastly thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and has written to me this past week it seriously helps so much and i promise i read them all even if i dont have time to respond to all of them! Love you all and hope you guys have a great week!

-Elder Ericson

Texas Roadhouse

They have a texas roadhouse in san luis, which is where we go for p day every week! Safe to say ive eaten texas roadhouse for like 5 weeks straight haha!(they may or may not have country music and football 🤷‍♂️ i can neither confirm or deny this statement haha) p days here are awesome and im starting to learn magic tricks! Watch out grandpa brewer you might have a competitor in the next few years haha! Also ive been learning the guitar and sorry to say mom but it is way more fun than the piano ever was haha (dont worry i practice the piano every week still😅)

The work: we had zone conference today and as we were on the 3 hour bus ride back we met a man named adrian and talked to him for 2 hours! Hes amazing and is really interested about learning more about the gospel! We had a fair amount of lessons this week but not very many people are progressing to the waters of baptism just yet but they will be in no time! The work here is very slow and many people just blow us off but thats okay the right people are out there and theyll be found in due time!

Thank you all for the prayers they help so much and it really makes the mission better knowing there's so many people praying for me and all of the other missionaries.

Spiritual thought:

I recently found a poem that ive read in the past and it meant a lot to me and reading it these past few weeks has been so awesome! 

Many of you probably know this poem but its called footprints in the sand. It talks about walking with the savior. I attached a pic of the poem.

I hope you all have a great week! Thank you guys for the prayers theyre truly felt amd appreciated!

"I Am God"

 Ok this week took forever but at least its p day now so that's good. This week we had a zone wide blitz in san felipe (my area) with 20 missionaries down here all just contacting and teaching the whole day. It was so awesome! Towards the end of the day we were knocking a few doors of people in teaching and somehow there was a mix up and 5 elders ended up in this one guys house.(i have no idea how 5 of us ended up there) we started teaching about baptism and this man started asking questions about the plan of salvation so we changed topics and started talking about the plan of salvation and the importance of agency, the spirit was strong and it was a really good lesson and as we finished and started to leave the man turns to us and said "i am god" we started laughing a little bit but this man was completely serious. We asked him if he was joking but he said no i am god again and we asked him why do you think that and he said because i am all powerful and a perfect person and created the world. We left and wondered what on earth this guy was on because i need what he's taking haha. Anyways theres 2 hours of my life im never going to get back😂

This week was pretty boring other thank the blitz, just same old contacting getting rejected and having no one show up to church. My spanish still has a long way to go but its coming along 😅(kinda) i ate way too many eggs and chicken this week so hopefully when i get back home i wont look like a stick(probably wont happen haha) ive been learning the guitar and im horrendous at it haha but we will get there eventually! If you have any tips or things that could help me learn spanish or the guitar haha those would be appreciated! 

Spiritual thought:

"The other prodigal" president holland,

This talk is amazing and you guys should all give it a read! This talks about the parable of the prodigal son, only from the perspective of the brother! This talk is an amazing reminder about how blessed we are by being in the church and just because someone else is blessed, doesn't mean that our blessings are any less significant! This gospel is amazing and i invite you all to not take it for granted because the suffering that comes from not feeling gods love is worse that you can ever imagine!

Love you all hope you guys have a great week! If you guys have time an email would make my day! Even if i cant respond to all of them i read them all and they're amazing!

Elder Ericson

Robbed at Gunpoint?

 Hello everyone hope you are all doing well! From the title you are probably all wondering what the heck happened and dont worry me and my comp are all good and thankfully noone was injured! 

Storytime:

We travel up to the main city for p day every week and we had a meeting sunday night so we traveled up to the big city a little early for the meeting. We got to the city at 430 and walked to the church to see if someone could let us in early. We arrived to the church and my comp started calling people in the area to see if anyone had keys to let us in. After calling 2-3 companionships in the area 3 guys pulled up on a bike with a gun and walked over to us and started yelling in spanish (i had no idea what they were saying) they ended up taking both of our phones, my comps wallet, and that was it. They left and waved at us for making their work day easy I guess🤷‍♂️ come to find out the last companionship we were about to call when that went down was actually inside the church the whole time so thats great. 

Other than that the week was really good but ending it off on that just kinda sucked haha so now im writing an email on a guy in my zones phone so you all know im not dead haha. We found a decent amount of new people which was awesome and I learned that this is the worst baptizing mission in mexico so let's hope we can change that here in a little bit haha!

Halloween here in San felipe is awesome the whole city was in 2 of the parks walking back and forth it was so cool and all of the kids costumes were awesome!! My comp and I went and bought 3 bags of candy and walked around until we saw a costume we liked and then we dumped a whole bag of candy into their buckets haha it was awesome!! (The costumes that won a bag of candy were Spiderman, Captain America, and Luigi!)

Highlights:

Didn't die in front of the church!😁

Found a family who was all interested in hearing the white guy talk about the book of mormon!📖

Halloween was awesome!👻

Dia de muertos is kinda mid☠️

Cinnamon rolls!!(would add a photo but uh yeah kinda lost everything on my phone) 😢

Ate way too many eggs🐣

Pet a bunch of street dogs!(dont worry I haven't kept any... yet) 🐶

Spiritual thought

Everything happens for a reason. We never know why but we constantly have to face trials and go through things that makes it feel like God's just hitting you down as soon as you start getting better. Just like president eyring's talk from this past conference God is constantly building us up and giving us experiences to prepare us for the future and to become the people God needs us to be!!

Love you guys if you guys want to send me an email this week id love it! Have a great week!