Mmm…good times
Well, I wasn’t here this weekend for my preparation day, because Elder Fillerup, one of the assistants, finished his mission Friday so President sent me to work with his companion for the weekend. I had a great time in Ixtapaluca with Elder Christensen. We baptized there and in my area Aragón and have a baptism for next week too in Aragón, however tomorrow are changes [transfers] so I won’t be here.
I am so excited to have changes and just be a normal missionary again, even though I loved my time as a [financial] secretary. Yes, that means my preparation days will return to Monday and I won’t be driving in traffic, etc. I don’t know where I am going yet, however I know that I am going to be a District Leader again. That will be good because Elder Cambria (my replacement) will be able to call me with the questions he will inevitably have. I know—I was there!
Well, that’s about the only little time I have to write today, I just wanted to let you all know I am happy and excited and that I love you all so much!
-Elder Packer
P.S. Thank you all for writing me… I haven’t been able to read your letters yet… it is the most email I have ever received in one week. [Bryce's birthday is today.] Pretty crazy, I’m 25, Huh? We are capacitating [orienting] the new missionaries so we are going to La Onda a tacos restaurant like always, so I’ll even get a b-day dinner!
We must prove ourselves
I wanted to share the letter I wrote to President Bulloch.
We’ve been having some pretty difficult days where our appointments have all fallen through, and I’m not going to say it wasn’t difficult. Especially so since we’ve been working hard every day these past weeks to become “misioneros de exito” [missionaries of success] and not just working hard and being exactly obedient, but going the second mile, hablando con TODOS [talking with ALL] testifying of the truths of the restored Gospel, exercising at 6:30 am on preparation day, etc.
Yesterday all eight of our lessons fell through, however we contacted in the street, knocked doors, asked for and contacted references, even visited part member families… and at the end of the day—nothing. It was frustrating and I thought maybe we’ll go eat tacos or I’ll go to bed early, I was a little discouraged and ready find a little comfort in something.
After a comment my companion made, I remembered part of the letter I wrote myself: “Trials come that they may prepare you for the blessings or spiritual experiences you are working for. After the blessings come trials, that we may be prepared to receive again greater blessings.” As missionaries, we teach every day that one of our purposes in life is to be tried, to prove to the Lord that we are really His children. Isn’t it the same as missionaries? Now I know it. If we are obedient, working hard and love the people when everything goes well, great! Who doesn’t? However, I believe it’s when everything goes wrong yet we still give our best, that determines if we are truly “misioneros de exito” and representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I know that the Lord has great blessing in store for me, blessings that He cannot give if I don’t pass the test. I’m going to do it!
-Elder Packer
Driving and traffic
What a week. First we have been driving all over the mission to open up new apartments for the 16 missionaries that are coming in on Monday. Ten left yesterday and so that means we open five new areas in the mission! I’ve been driving a lot too, traffic, rain, pot holes and cracks in the road… its been a long week. 
Yesterday was such a crazy day that I can’t even write half of what happened. Just a couple of the big things… we ended up having to drive across the city from the offices to the airport to change vans…drive back across the city to the house, load up beds, furniture, etc… got to the house and we didn’t have keys…I “broke” into the house… the keys weren’t there… I had to “break” back out of the house (that was a lot harder. 
… We drove back across the city (in heavy traffic) to get the keys… back to the house in traffic… got the stuff…drove back across the city (now night time and still in traffic)… out of the city (still in traffic and still night time)…into the state of Mexico…got really lost…still really lost…LOST… yep thats about how yesterday went.
Today we went all the way to Pachuca and just got back about an hour ago. Driving again was fun at first… now I’m just tired!
Have a great, safe, fun week!!!
Love
-Bryce
National Anthropology Museum
Hola,
Well, another interesting week. Last Saturday we went to the National Anthropology Museum which was amazing! They have artifacts from all over Mexico and it was very intriguing to see just how diverse the Mexican culture is.
This week we were supposed to have our zone conference, however President Bulloch had a kidney stone, :/ so he was several days in the hospital and they eventually had to remove it surgically. Not very fun I imagine.Later he showed us the stone (he had it in a little plastic bag, it was funny shaped and quite large). The other thing that happened was that he couldn’t leave the hospital until the medical bill was paid, so we had to make a forum and bring it upstairs to the [Church's] General Financier for all of Mexico to sign it.
Our area is starting to improve drastically…I don’t know if I explained that when I came here the President changed our area so we started the cycle without investigators and we didn’t know anyone in the ward. So we created a member based mission plan for the area and it is going great; we have one family, a part member family, and a young adult who are all progressing, as well as various other. The young adult’s name is Vicky and is going to get baptized next week. She has had some form of abuse in her past and it has been amazing how quickly and thoroughly the Gospel of Jesus Christ heal people emotional and spiritually. I love being a missionary!
Have and amazing week! I love you!
-Elder Packer
Zone leader conference and gross tacos
So far all is going well with the financial work; it’s weird to be crunching numbers and making reports, etc. I like it though and am sure it will be a huge blessing later on, because as you all know, I never was the most prudent or cautious when it came to [personal] money.
Today we are going to the museum of anthropology, which is closed on Mondays and out side of our mission I think, so it’s not something most missionaries get to do. So that will be neat.
I still haven’t been able to get my [driver's] license because the immigrations secretary, Elder Lechuga thought that immigrations still had my passport, later we found it locked up in his office, which really is okay, because hours of driving a 12 passenger van in traffic isn’t always fun. Plus everyone is tired of driving so I’m sure they’ll make the new guy drive a lot.
This week was the quarterly Zone Leaders conference, so we spent some time preparing all of that and most of Wednesday was spent in attendance. It is amazing to be around the Mission President so much, he is a truly incredible person, with such a strong spirit.
Other things out of the normal that have happened this week is one elder left his house in the middle of the night and called the President a few days later (in another state) wanting his passport, so we had to go get him very late at night from the bus station have him spend the night with us and bring him to meet with the president the next day… after we brought him to the airport. :/ Kind of weird.
Oh yea, I forgot to tell you all last week that I ate all the weird types of tacos my last day in Chimalhuacan [Ciudad-Alegre], head meat tacos, tongue tacos, brain tacos, snout tacos and eyeball tacos!!! They were all pretty much gross gross gross!!! …and really expensive, too!
Our area is amazing, however we need to work more with members because we have so little time to work there.
I love you all; take care and give everyone my best!!
-Elder Packer
I’m in one of the largest cities in the world!
Well, there is lots to tell, seeing that everything is crazy different now. First off, I’m in one of the largest cities in the world! I am in a trio, which is pretty cool. My companions are Elder Olson (the old financial sec. who is training me) and Elder Muñoz (who is the material’s secretary). They are both great! Our area is right across the street from the temple!!! It’s amazing!!! Our church service starts at 2 pm. In my old area, it was at 8:30 am, so that will be hard to adjust to! I was so tired yesterday in sacrament meeting and fell asleep a few times. :/
We live really far outside of our mission boundaries, like 40 minutes. It’s in the West Mission, that’s because we are in the Church/Mission offices Monday-Friday 8 am – 3:30 pm, From there we drive to our area (about an hour with traffic) and work our area till 9 pm then go home (another 30-40 minutes). There are also two other missionaries that are secretaries, Elder Livingston and Elder Lechuga. They also live with us… so our-house is HUGE and about fifteen minutes from the offices. We have our own washer and dryer, two bathrooms, workout equipment, and bunch of other stuff.
The mission home where the Mission President lives is also about 15 minutes from the offices. The offices and our houses are in the downtown of Mexico City! I am actually in the offices right now at my own desk. (We have permission to use our own computers to write home and all that is pretty sweet)! We are the only mission with our offices in the church office buildings, which means I am in the same building as the Area Authorities!!! …And yea, we have fans and air conditioning in the offices.
Also you need to know that you need to write me earlier in the week because, as secretaries, our Preparation days are on Saturday! Another crazy thing is I am going to be getting a Mexican drivers license… and driving our huge mission van all over the mission! Mexicans are also the craziest drivers, the whole country is covered in speed bumps (including some of the highways) it’s the only way they can keep people from speeding too much and to stop at intersections. So that will be another adventure!
We also had a funny experience my second night with the secretaries. We were waiting for the assistants outside of their house, in our big white van (you know the sketchy type that mobsters use in the movies) when the Mexico City SWAT team came with several squad cars and their SWAT van and surrounded our van. They all got out in their bullet proof vests with their big guns and all and we had to all get out…we thought we were going to get stripped down, but luckily my adventure didn’t go that far! We explained who we are and why we were there and that was all. (I guess there are some problems in that area and someone called the police.) Afterwards we took their picture, hehehe.
Well, I am sure there will be much more to write later.
I love you all and hope you are doing well!
Bryce
Oh yeah, I will also get mail faster, because it comes right to where I am, and I found out that you can’t mail stuff through FEDEX because they charge a bunch of taxes, however the US postal services comes fine.
