Yo, so crazy dope week! Lots of time on a bus, baptizing, teaching, finding, teaching, and eating super good Mexican food as always. So it started out with heading to Tampico last Tuesday. That was super, super fun, four of us from Zona Victoria headed up to Tampico to pick up our new comps. I was so stoked for this generation of new Elders because they got some super sick trainers not gonna lie. Every single missionary there at the trainers meeting is a super good missionary and it was fun to see all of them. When we got to the mission home Tuesday, there were 12 new missionaries. 8 were Americans and I was pretty sure I wouldn't get any of them as my comp, 3 from South America and 1 from Mexico. Well my comp's name is..... Elder Garry, an American from Mesa, Arizona, who one night was taking photos with Elder Faught in the MTC and the next was snappin photos with another member of GMC$ down in Tampico, Mexico! How sick is that?! He's a super cool Elder.  We know a bunch of the same people because he went to BYU too.  So yeah, I was pretty much blown away by that, President Call very rarely gave Americans to American Trainers, but here we are together. Haha. His Spanish isn't too bad, but there's still a lot to learn, so the goal is that we're really trying not to speak a lot of English and so far we've done a pretty good job with it. I'm really focusing on giving him lots of opportunities to teach and contact and learn by trial and error because really that's the only way you learn a lot of times is by personal experience. That was something that Elder Rindy gave me was a ton of chances to contact people in the streets which really helped my Spanish improve quickly, so we're doing a lot of that down here as well.
So I was super happy that Jessica's baptism was this last Saturday because how sick is it to arrive in your first area in the mission and have your comp tell you that you guys have a baptism this coming Saturday and that you're going to do the ordinance?! So yeah, Jessica's baptism was this last Saturday and Elder Garry did the baptizing which was super sweet! He did a great job, he was a little worried about the words in Spanish but he did perfect. It was such an awesome service, her husband came with their little daughter, and Christian, one of our other recent converts, spoke and gave the story of his conversion which was super, super powerful. He is preparing to serve a mission, going to receive Melchezidek priesthood soon, and we made plans for him to go on the ward temple trip to Tampico in two weeks!
We also found of ton of new investigators this week that are super close to baptism already! There's a man named Teodocio in Barrio Mainero that was baptized not too long ago and we found him, taught his wife and his two kids, and they ALL came to church this past week! It was super sick, also the familia Villanueva is progressing well and will be baptized the 1st of September. I've been really happy that Elder Garry is experiencing some good success in his first area because that wasn't really a luxury that Elder Rindy and Elder Castro and I had in Francia for like 9 of my 12 weeks there haha. But it's been a super fun week, Elder Garry is getting used to Mexico pretty well, he hasn't gotten sick yet which is a plus.
I'm super stoked, tomorrow is Zone Conference so Pres and Hna Jordan are heading up to Victoria. I really like President Jordan, we get along super well and he reminds me a ton of Dad. There are a ton of similarities haha. But he's a super funny guy and I'm sure zone conference will be sweet. Our goal as a zone is even higher this change than the last one. It was 53 last change and 57 this change. I'm super stoked, Victoria seriously is so sweet and truly is exploding right now.
It's still blazing hot here, but everyone tells me that in September it will start to cool off a little bit, that will be nice. This last week has been kinda weird because for the first time is my mission, my Spanish is better than my companion's haha. But it's been really good; I would say I feel 100% fluent, I don't have any real problems communicating and I can finally get some of the jokes the first time haha. The Lord has really blessed me with the language.
Ok, so I need my home girls Logan and Baylee's address up at BYU so if you will hit me with that this next week I would love that.
I love you all so much. Have an awesome time going back to school everyone. I wanted to send a ton of pics this week cuz I have some sweet ones, but my computer won't let me in the Internet Cafe I'm in HASHTAGhomeless. I hope all is well. I miss you all, but Victoria is the place to be at. Thank you all for your prayers, love and support, I really do feel them often.
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Elder Stockard