Editor’s note: Bryce’s mother, Tanda, sent Bryce a set of questions. Below are his answers.

Thanks, mom, for the questions, after a tiring week it helps the not so creative mind.

1. Your place in Mexico City was very nice it seemed. What is you housing like now?

My apartment right now is nice, its very small, however clean (now) and in a very central location I my area, which helps.

2. Do you live with 1 or 3 other elders and who are they and where are they from?

I only live with my companion, Elder Alcantar, who is great! He is from Torreon, Cuahuila, Mexico.

3. What is your area like now? poor, wealthy, middle class etc.?

It’s a little pueblo on a hillside, next to the volcanos. There are lots of dirt roads here and adobe houses. It’s nice, I would say it is my favorite area of them all. So many of the people here are receptive to the Gospel.

4.  We are hearing lots of information about violence etc. tied to drug wars have you seen that type of things going on?

Nope, thats all in the north of the country like in Ciudad Juarez.

5. What did you buy for your birthday?

To be honest, I spent most of the money sending that package home. However we are having a shirt and matching rings made, and I will probably go to Mexico City my last week to buy a couple of keepsakes.

6.  Do you need some more money? if so about how much?

Well, because of the package, it might be nice to have some money to buy a couple things at the end as well as some stuff for the family. If you could send a little for that I will pay you back.

7.  Where do you email from now?

An internet cafe close to the house.

8. Are you on foot now?

yep

9. Who are your investigators and how are they coming along?

Well, we just had a baptism yesterday of a sweet old woman, Maria, who is 80, however she is still sharp. It was a very special baptismal service. This week we are going to be baptizing Luis, the son of a recent convert who didn’t want to go to church before, but now is very excited about the gospel. Axel is a youth who is super intelligent and reading the Book of Mormon and bunch (we have really seen how the gospel has brought a brightness in his countenance); and we also have Cynthia and Sandra who were supposed to get baptized yesterday, but fell off the face of the earth over the week end, so we’ll see what will happen with them.

10.  What are some of your duties as district leader?

There are not that many really, the most important are baptismal interviews, which are a lot gratefully. Then district class, receiving and giving key indicator reports on Thursdays and Saturdays, delivering pouch on Sundays.

11. How many companionships do you have in your district?

My companion and I and two other companionships, so 6 Elders, 3 companionships.

12. What are your worries this week?

Not finding Cynthia and Sandra for their baptisms this week.

13.  What  gave you joy this week?

Maria’s baptism, not being sick anymore (my companion and I had bad colds for a few weeks), and my district class went well.

14. Do you get to watch General Conference live or as a rebroadcast?

Live in our chapel, because it’s the stake center. The chapel is kind of far away, its the same word, but in another area.

I hope that keeps your curiosity tied over for the week, I’m looking forward to reading all you letters!

Well congratulations Emily beforehand on your deliver date. you asked me about my release date… Well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you but since I was in the offices still when they bought my plane ticket, I am coming home on Saturday, May 15th… and if I remember correctly, I fly into Dulles around 3:30 pm.

…but we’ll worry about all of that later!

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

-Elder Packer

Well this is going to be a short one as I’ve been trying to prepare a small package to send you all for Christmas.

First of all the Christmas call… you can call me on the 25th in the morning at my office number. I’ll confirm the time with you next week.

I’m sick with a sinus/throat infection, however it hasn’t been too strong.

This week was our Christmas conference and we got to enter into the temple with President and Sister Bulloch. It was AMAZING. I learned and forgot so many things, not having entered since a year ago. I love the temple.

The mission Christmas conference was split into two days, so I was in charge of organizing the transportation for the parts of the mission that are a little far, like Pachuca. I also rented rooms in the CCM (MTC in Mexico). Then the President asked if I could spend the night to make sure that everything went over well. 64 Elders and 11 Sister missionaries for a Christmas sleepover. Yah, you can imagine—it was a night.

Oh, I also finally bought a new suit! It was a really good deal and is great quality.

Well I love you all and you are in my prayers…talk to you soon!

-Bryce

This has been a kind of tough week, since we’ve been really sick, with the flu or some fever and cold combination. My companion and I spent a day and several half days in the house, and that can get ya down.

Over that past while I have learned the great importance of being diligent in what I do, that consistency is necessary to be happy and successful… maybe thats why the missionary schedule is so organized.  Wake up time, daily exercise, scripture study, service, bed time… And when we don’t feel well we tend to let our consistency slip, which makes us feel worse and makes it harder to get things in motion again. Diligence is so important in our personal progress! …especially when its most difficult.

One of my greatest personal studies I have had happened this week… When I was sick, I still got up on time and I sill studied in the Book of Mormon. The Lord blessed me for doing so! I have been studying and pondering much about the “mighty change” and know that change is a product of constant righteousness. One of my favorite scriptures that I found this week is Alma 19:33 “… and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing — that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil.” I didn’t quite understand completely before that a mighty change doesn’t mean that you’re not tempted, but rather that you don’t give in to your temptations because the desire to sin is replaced with the desire to follow Christ. I understand that we need opposition, or in this case to be tried, and that even Christ was tempted, however He never gave in. I sincerely want this mighty change, or to not have the desire to sin. Although sometimes we feel along ways away, I know that the Lord will help us with this and that it will come over time as we put forth our greatest effort to be constantly righteous.

I love you all!

Have a diligent, productive week!

-Bryce

Okay, so the first thing is… to call next week. Wahoo! We’re not sure where or when, hehehe. We are going to ask he bishop if we can call in the church, and we were thinking around 3:30 which is 4:30 pm (EST) your time? Anyway, we’ll work it out and I will try to do the same as last time to call and confirm right before.

So the swine flu… called la Influenza here I guess it hasn’t been too much trouble. However, with everyone home and we don’t have permission to knock on doors or contact in the street, it’s pure referrals… So we have been visiting lots of members and inactives and harassing them until they give us someone to visit, which has worked out well because we found new people to teach and we also are helping the members get over their fear of doing missionary work!

We have had a hard time as far as our investigators and baptisms, because there hasn’t been services for two weeks, which messed up stuff for us for almost a whole month of programmed [scheduled] baptisms. However, we are going to baptize a really great woman this week. Her family has been coming to church with us for a while and she could have been baptized earlier, but we let her choose her own date and she wanted Mother’s Day. So that was okay with us. Her husband still wants to wait a few weeks and their teenage daughters want to be baptized too. However, the parents want them to understand a little more, and since they haven’t come to church as many times.

They didn’t have any changes this cycle [transfer] because of the virus, so two of the Elders here will have 6 cycles in the same area… that’s 9 months! I think I would go crazy! One of them is a Zone leader and the other elder is in his first area in the mission…hehehe. Better them than me!

Well, I am super excited to talk with you on Sunday. Oh yeah, I read that Kerry had a sinus infection. Guess what I also woke up last Saturday 25 de Abril with a sinus infection. It was the day after all this broke out. Knowing the flu symptoms, I figured nothing was wrong. However, by Tuesday I was pretty sick and all of my District called me out and told me I had to call the Mission President. So it ended up all was well and it cleared up after a few days. However, I now have boogers thick enough to glue my hands together permanently.

Okay, well the time has come. I hope you are all safe and doing well. I love you and I am extremely excited to talk next week.

Love, Bryce

Happy Easter everyone! It’s been an interesting week… One time I ate lunch and in less than an hour I saw it again… it was still identifiable …Now the real strange thing is about a half hour later I saw the cucumber…. the one I ate about a half hour before lunch!  You guys can try to figure that one out. So yeah, I was sick with the Mexican curse, however I’ve felt better today.

Yesterday [Sunday] we had to help with several baptisms… which involved showering at 4 am and going to the chapel to turn on the boiler and fill up the font…then take a quick nap and then conduct a baptismal interview at 6:45 and participate in the service at 7 am. When that was all over, we left to get our investigators and return to the church.

Later the missionaries from our district came to explain that their scheduled baptisms fell through because they were the children of a Catholic father and a mother who is a member. And the father decided that the children weren’t going to be baptized…So I went with one of the other Elders to the family’s house and we taught the whole family about the restoration and set a baptismal date for the father as well. We had several prayers…and then the whole family came with us to the church for their children’s baptisms. It wasn’t quite as easy as that! To say the least, we had lots of help!!! …Especially considering the father has never even been near our church building. However as mom says, “all is well that ends well”.

Other things that have been going on are… I don’t think that the zone leaders are greatly pleased with my district’s performance, and am feeling like we need to go on divisions [splits] with them soon. Oh well.
My “son”…Elder Nuñez (the missionary I trained) is in the district of Elder Reed (my cousin). Wow that’s a kind of Spanglish way to say that… I’ve really forgotten how to use the possessive “S”.

We had Zone conference with our mission President and he is the MAN. We reviewed what we’ve learned in our 90 day study of the Book of Mormon and he has tapped into another dimension of this book! The Book of Mormon is incredible, especially when you are looking for specific things!

Well until next week…

I love you all!!! And hope you are all very happy!

Bryce