Hola Familia!

It was another good week out here, pretty normal, not much to write about really. But one elder´s mom sent him a copy of the worldwide youth devotional that President and Sister Nelson had in June so I decided to give it a read and WOW, what powerful stuff. I suggest everyone who hasn't watched it yet to watch it. 

Sister Nelson started by teaching about our premortal life. She mentioned some very specific things I had never heard before like how we weren't just passive followers of Christ before coming to earth, rather we were righteous and valiant defenders of Him. We learned and knew that Heavenly Father´s plan was the only way we could really become like Him and achieve an eternal joy. Sister Nelson also said that although our Heavenly Father wisely blurred our knowledge of this before we came here, if we can just learn and remember this truth, we will be able to gracefully endure any trial in our life. 

Now what the prophet shared was that every one of the prophets from Adam all the way to the present have seen our day and labeled it as the most important time in the history of the world. Why? Because it is the ´final phase´of the gathering of scattered Israel before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ! President and Sister Nelson specifically addressed themselves to all the youth between the ages of 12 and 18 and described them as the chosen generation and the Lord's Battalion. All of this corresponding perfectly with a quote I read from Gordon B. Hinckley this week as well that says, "The reason why there are so many sister missionaries in the world today is because in the next generation, our Heavenly Father will send his priesthood army to the earth. And He wants to send them to mothers that have received the adequate training and that have been taught the Gospel, and the best training a woman can receive is to serve a mission." 

So now I've been thinking, what does all this mean? I think what it means is that the best missionaries and most powerful leaders in the history of the Church have yet to fulfill their life's calling, but they are among the Church's youth today and they are preparing. It also means that they will finish the work which was started generations before them of bringing the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ to all those that will receive it in this world. 

And finally it means that the Second Coming that has been prophesied in all the holy scriptures is very near. What an exciting and blessed time! The time to prepare is now, today! Sister Nelson even shared an experience of meeting someone from every one of the 12 Tribes Scattered Tribes of Israel in a time period of 24 hours which means the tribes are all here. We just need to finish gathering them!

Honestly, I know without a doubt that President Nelson is the Lord´s prophet on the earth today and that this Church is true. What exciting times we live in and what responsibility we have! I'm so lucky to be a missionary.

Love you all! Have a good week!

Love,

Élder Tucker

Xochicalco

Hola Familia!

Sorry for the overload of pictures, but we had another great week out here and a sweet p-day activity at Xochicalco!!

Xochicalco is this city of ancient ruins and pyramids about an hour and a half outside of Cuernavaca and I'll tell you what, it puts Tepoztlán to shame! I felt like I was at Machu Picchu. Supposedly, a big part of it was a school for the warriors and military leaders around 400 AD, but there's also parts of it that were used for markets and housing governing leaders. This is definitely another place I'm taking my family back to someday, so cool to see and learn about the history of the ancestors of the people I'm teaching in the present day and how all these descendants come from the people of the Book of Mormon.

Anyway, it was another good week in the work as well. Still working and praying to find some new people to teach that can really progress. We thought we had found a solid one on Tuesday who accepted the invitation to be baptized and everything, but it turned it she´s been a member all along and didn't even know it lol. Oh well, we know the fruits of our labors will start manifesting themselves soon.

Have a great week everyone! Love you.

Love,

Elder Tucker

By This Shall Men Know

Hola Familia!

Sorry for the lateness of this email, but itt was another good week out here topped off with my kind of p-day, 3 and a half hours of basketball and soccer with the zone!

I´ve been getting a hang of all my responsibilites out here and I´m super refreshed and excited for a new week.

I´m also really enjoying being a district leader again although the only people in my district are the APs and my companion. Last week I had us read the story of the Joven Rico in Mark 13. This story is recorded three times in the Gospels, but only the version in Mark says that before inviting the young man to sell all of his things and follow Him, Jesus looked upon him and loved him. I then shared that as missionaries, we often ask a lot of our investigators like to stop smoking, find a job that allows them not to work on sundays, get married, or change a lifelong custom. But if we really want to teach in the savior´s way, we need love the people we are teaching before we ask something so big of them. Later in the training, I then shared John 13 where Christ washes the feet of His Apostles and I tuaght the importance of expressing love towards and serving our companion because Jesus said By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples; if ye have love one to another.

Something I´ve learned in my mission is that people are always watching us as members and especially as missionaries. Many know who we are and what believe, but do our actions that they see always reflect the same thing as we believe? I know we can always make a huge difference in someone´s perspective or future possibility to receive the Gospel if we always live what we believe.

Anyway, hope you are all well and have a great week!!!

Love,

Elder Tucker

Executive Secretary Duties

Hey Dad! It was a very good week. Only President Treviño is allowed to drive in the mission so travel is always by taxis, buses, and public transportation. I dont need to travel to much normally. But my responsibilities include dropping off and picking up missionaries from the CDMX airport, everything that has to do with Visas for the missionaries in the mission not from Mexico like making sure they renew it when they complete a year, next week I´ll be taking 11 american elders to immigration here in Cuernavaca and I gotta make sure the have all their paperwork right. 

I communicate with and sometimes receive training from a group of people in the Mexico MTC that are experts and train all the executive secretaries in mexico. I work very closely with President Treviño, he´s here in the offices almost everyday. I book his hotel reservations when he has to travel throughout the mission. The APs work in my and my companion's ward with us so we see them all the time and work closely with them as well. I schedule the travel plans and buy the tickets for all the missionaries in the mission that need to travel which can be a lot during transfers. 

I keep a lot of records and have to be very organized in all that I do. I´m getting good at using Excel, Microsoft Word, and Publisher, and basic office stuff like working with and maintaining the computers and printers and whatever needs to get done really. I´m also a district leader, but the only members of my district are the APs and my comp. Which means my only responsibility with that is to prepare a training each week in the district meeting. 

Each Monday evening after district meeting, we have an office meeting with President, the APs, and the other two secretaries (Records and Materials/Housing secretary) and this meeting is to plan out things and be on the same page. I think those are pretty much all my responsibilities as the executive secretary and I guess whatever else president asks of or assigns to me. I liking it a lot! 

The basic daily schedule is get up at 6AM, work out for 30 minutes, eat breakfast and get ready for the day, 1 hour of personal study, 30-60 minutes of companionship study, 30-60 minutes of language study, 9:30 or 10 get to the offices, update records, figure out what needs to get done, make plans, make calls, everything depending on the day and what needs to get done, 3PM comida with a member and the APs, after the comida we proselyte and go home around 8:30 or whenever it gets dark, update the area book, make plans for the next day, maybe get in another little study or journal entry and in bed at 9:30. I feel like I´m doing a lot of stuff that´ll prepare me and give me good experience in the future!

Cool to here about John and Jayton. Do you know what John is gonna be up to? Dinner at Alinea sounds like it´ll be fun! You´ll have to tell me all about it and send pics! I've still been doing a lot of pushups. I´m up to sets of 30 now and I weigh less than I did sophomore year of high school haha. But it´s a good weight loss, don´t think I've been starving out here or anything.

Thanks for the email! Love you and miss you.

Hola Familia!

Alright I´m sorry, but I don´t have much time to write again. I´ll be better next week.

Saturday we had 4 baptisms! Esthér, Andrea, Esmeralda, and Juan Carlos. Esthér is the wife of a long time member who passed away recently. She never seemed to want much to do with the church, but the missionaries kept visiting and saturday she finally decided to take the first step to really bringing her family together forever! Andrea and Esmeralda are her grandaughters and Juan Carlos is her great grandson!!! Super cool.

Other than that, today I dropped off my first return missionary today at the Mexico City Airport! Elder Paul who was also a former executive secretary.

Love you all, have a good week!!!

Love,

Elder Tucker

Las oficinas son chidas

Hola Familia!

How´s it going everybody? It was a cool week! I´ve been learning a ton of new things everyday here in the offices with my new assignment. Nothing too complicated yet, just a lot of things to get done everyday.

First off, Thursday, President Treviño took Élder Smchitz and I to Acapulco and Chilpancingo to get some signatures and pictures of the elders in the mission that are coming up on their year mark and need to get their Visas renewed. It was pretty cool to talk to President for the long drive. Sounds like he was a successful businessman. Has some good spiritual and temporal advice.  But the best part was when we stopped for Tarascos Tacos in Acapulco!!! Élder Schmitz and I took down half a kilo of pastor with cheese melted on top man it was so good.

Sunday I was assigned to give a talk in church, but I was saved when Élder Martínez of the area 70 decided to show up and take up a bunch of sacrament meeting. He gave a really good talk too on love. He said posed the question How do you know you love someone? How does someone know you love them? One answer would be to reflect on all the past things you have done for that person and all the things you´d be willing to do for them. Christ loves us with a perfect love because he was willing to do everything for us and he did. And he invites us, A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. Not only should we love others like ourself, but we should love them even as He loves them. What an invitation! Obviously, we all have a long way to go before being able to love everyone even as Jesus does, but like everything, we need to try. The last thing Élder Martinez asked to the parents was, What are the best things you can do to show your children that you love them? Family prayer, family scripture study, and familly have evening. I can also testify to the power of those three things and I always felt good after doing them with my fam.

Anyway, love you all! Have a good week!

Love,

Élder Tucker

ps-I got in a fight with a pole today

¡Aún más cambios: Secretario Ejecutivo!

Hola Familia,

I don´t have time to write right now, but this week, President Treviño called me as the new executive secretary of the mission! Some of my new responsibilites include renewing the Visas and passports of all the missionaries in the mission from outside of Mexico, receiving and sending off missionaries in the Mexico City airport, helping with the transfers, and buying bus tickets for missionaries that need to travel in the mission. I´m very excited for this new assignment. Élder Schmitz, the last executive secretary, will be training me for the next 2 weeks to teach me the ropes and my other companion, Élder Bonilla from Honduras, is the finance secretary. It sounds like generally, I´ll be working in the office in Cuernavaca everyday from 9am until about 2:30pm and then we´re expected to proselyte the rest of the day. But we have the flexibility to change the order of our schedule based on the time of appointments and the busyness of our things to do.

Saturday, we had a baptism in my new ward, Palmas, of a 45 year-old convert named César who I just met on Wednesday! He´s awesome and I´m excited to keep visiting and working with him!

Hopefully I´ll have a little more time to write next week, but anyway, it´s all good out here! Love you all!

Love,

Élder Tucker