February 27, 2017

 my feet and teeth are fine, im tough momma, remember :) its cuz you beat me so much growing up. This week was good,had some difficult days, but it was good. we do laundry by hands, which is why all the mexicans have strong forearms, its hard work. not even joking. we do it in a little wash basin. we met a little boy named edgar this week and he is like 10, his mom sells elotes, and then we saw him getting beat up the next day so we said "hey, stop beating up edgar", the kid was like 14, but were bffs with edgar now. Heis always in the street playing soccer so i kick it around with him for a minute, but we always have to get back to work, which sometimes mean continuing walking aimlessly on the streets because we dont have anything to do. the first 2 weeks combined we taught 2 lessons, but we are starting to get our investigators set which is really nice, more lessons means less walking. I also learned that the way the letters work here, when youre drunk "elder koenig" looks a lot like it says "if youre drunk come talk/argue/just be weird in general to me", thats not the direct translation, but you get the point. missionaries are like drunk/crazy people magnets, this week we had this guy that was talking about the godfather and like asking us if we were in the mafia and stuff, and we just sat there and talked to him because we were waiting for a member, then our member walked up in a fedora and the crazy man says "oh, so you got al capone on your team" i laughed a bit. another crazy drunk man told us he was from a family of witches, and that his whole family had just been killed by cartel hit men. and thats just a sample, there are 1000 more stories. Me and Elder stubbs made hielitos today, which are these little ice cream things, im excited to eat them later. We eat with members a lot and they always feed us really really well,  love the food here. yesterday was the weirdest day so far, i could write an entire email about yesterday, so i was sitting in ward council after church and a brother in the ward came up and whispered to me that there was someone that needed our help, so we left and there were these 2 american girls that had walked like 6 miles to find the church because their friends were sick and wanted priesthood blessings, so Hermano Saul came with us because we didnt want to be alone with a bunch of white women. So we go to find their friends and their friends had gotten kicked out of their hotel because their checkout time was noon, and we thought there was just going to be 2 more of them, so we walk up and see 6 american girls with gnarly food poinsoning just passed out on the works rockiest beach in vallarta, its not even really a beach, but the rocks are like the sizeof a loaf of bread and probably really uncomfortable to lay on, and we couldnt give them a blessing on the boardwalk with tourists everywhere, so we were trying to find out what to do and Saul says we could go to the house of his girlfriends parents, who were sposed to be feeding us anyways. so we take 6 sick american girls (they were all between 18 and 20) on a bus to this members house, and only one of these girls knew spanish, which was a nightmare. so we get to the house and give them all blessings, then saul and hermano lorenzo are going to the market to get enough food or everyone, and we couldnt stay in the house with all these girls so we went to the market on a sunday, then we went and got medicine for these girls, and they ate with us, and so we were all just in this familys house speaking english and eating their food which made me feel super bad, and i hope they didnt blame us for it because it wasnt our fault that these girls were fools, it was way random and cool to see they had so much faith, because my last thought in that situation would be to go find missionaries...and ya, that was my week. learning spanish is fun, its like playing catchphrase 24/7. The ward is way nice but we dont know them very well yet and still get lost all the time. Elder stubbs today said "show me your morning and ill show you your day, show me your day and ill show you your mission, show me your mission and ill show you your life" he was quoting someone but i thought it was pretty neat. if we study we have good days, good days equal a good mission, and if you learn everything youre supposed to on your mission youll have a good life. thats it from my side of the wall, keep me updated. 

The Chat :
"theres this investigator we are teaching named adrianna and her some is really cute, and whenever he sees us he yells "hermanos", he reminds me a lot of parker guisti, he is 4 and walks around with his mom all day while she sells donuts off her head, but her husband sells cocaine we think, he got deported and speaks english, and he said he didnt want to come to our lesson because he had to go to business stuff, then we saw some white powder and i think i figured out what his business is, but then sunday morning we were walking to church and we saw adrianne and his mom and he didnt want to talk to us, he was mad because his dad didnt come home the night before, and they didnt know where he was, his mom said he was probably out drinking. he said he might move to cancun because "she my girl but we aint married, i can do what i want". hopefully he moves out so we can baptize her, it makes me so sad that that is how adrianne is being raised, and thats what his mom subjects herself to. im glad you and dad love each other"

February 20, 2017

This week was wild, i dont even know where to start. We found some good investigators this week, the problem is everybody is super open with their feelings about the gospel and everyone here supposedly loves god and loves to pray but nobody ever wants to apply his teachings in their lives, cuz that works. We convinced this one lady's husband to sit in on one of our and he used to go to bible camp as a kid, and he knows all this stuff, like he was telling us how important it is you hang out with good people because he would go to bible camp and be churchy while living with his sister during the summer but when he got back to his neighborhood he would start gang banging again. also our colonia (neighborhood) is deportee central, there are soo many people that speak english because they have been deported. We contacted this one guy in english (because he got deported of course) and it was sooo chill and so much easier. we found some of the dangerous areas in our area this week so we know not to go there anymore. we got this other family too that investigated the church for two years, the church helped him stop smoking, and the mom prayed and has a testimony of the book of mormon, they even have family home evening, hopefully we can get them baptized, because that is seriously the only thing they lack. We hung out with elder martinez and elder cangas today and that was fun. We had interviews with president this week so we had to go to ixtapa on saturday with takes over an hour both ways, and then we had stake conference saturday and sunday so we had to go up there again, i felt like we were wasting so much of the lords time. I dont understand how missionaries can be disobedient, we had to pay our water bill this week so we spent like 2 and a half hours trying to find somewhere to pay it because directions in mexico are a nightmare. we werent being disobedient, because we needed to pay the bill, but i still just felt like i was wasting time that i couldve spent helping people. We did service this week for a recent convert named Jorge, he is so awesome, his girlfriend wants him to do bad stuff but he doesnt want to because hes truly converted so the fight about it a lot i think. He got the melchizedek priesthood on sunday and it was awesome. I got the gift of tongues this week, not only to speak spanish but to speak mechanic in spanish, he needed help changing his carburator and tuning it and the spirit pretty much helped me remember everything ive ever heard johnny wadsworth say. it was way cool, and now his awesome truck runs even better, ill send pictures in a minute. I made the mistake of eating a few different chillys this week, i regretted it every single time. We ate some good food and are starting to get the hang of things. i wish stake conference wasnt this week because we need to get to know the members mnore, theyre all so awesome and friendly but we dont know them. In stake conference some people stood up and apposed the stake president which was weird, and then president clayton the mission president planched them. thats what we say here, planch means  iron, like you iron your clothes. and then the area seventy planched them too. We went to mismaloya which is a little pueblo a bit south of us, its in our area but its like an hour away, it was way pretty, and way touristy on the way there, but the pueblo is like out in the jungle, there are these peacock looking things that hop around in the trees, they fed us whole fishes, they cut the guts out but the eyes and head were still on and everything. They were caught in the ocean that morning, it was way good, the places people live here are psycho, but fun.  i am going to rant about that elder _______ guy for a minute, so we are supposed to email until 6 and then go back to work, so they were in our area and i said "k lets go" and he said "wait i still have to email president" then we waited for him to email president and continue messaging his friends until aboput 6:45, then they finally left so me and elder stubbs did our thing, then at like 7:50 we were walking to an appointment and we see elder ______ (still in ourt area, which is 45 minutes from his area) walking to go get tacos with some tourists he met. no idea. then that night at like 9:30  district leader calls us to ask if we know where they are because they werent home, and things are pretty dangerous here so we have to be in at 9, that is a way strict rule. so then on sunday one of the members mentions how they saw him in there, because thats exactly what we want our members to think, that the missionaries hang out with tourists at eat tacos all the time, i was fairly irritated. then he said they went ipod shopping (instead of missionary work [also not on pday) the dudes a fool. i was so irritated. here they call that "frito", it means you do whatever you want instead of following the rules. also we got a knife pulled on us last night, so that was neat, he wanted all of our money, but we didnt give him our money and were friends now, his name is james and he got deported so her knows english, and he knows a weird amount about the church, i wonder if he used to be a member, he told us he was going to go on a mission until he found out you have to pay for it yourself so now hes on the run.

This is from our chat :

"we go to district class every tuesday, with our whole district and usually another district, there are 18 people in our zone i think, 22 with the people who got emergency transfered down from nayarit. updfate there, they were having a limpieza, which means cleansing, they pretty much just bring in the military to kill everyone in the pacific cartel, but i think they killed most of them and things are settling down now. they cartel has so much power its a mini war for a little bit. those missionaries get to go home to santiago soon. today we hiked a cross thing, ill send pics. we havent played any soccer yet which is sad. we arent allowed to eatr the street food, but the members usually feed us out of the pots that they take to the centro to sell on the street haha, the mebers feed us sooo good. i might buy quesadillas this week, we eat tortillas with everything. one of our investigators, adrianna sells donuts, and she carries the tray of donuts on her head, has the tray holder in one hand, and beats her 4 year old with the other hand, she walks up and down these hills selling donuts off her head, its way cool."

February 13, 2017

Received this fun surprise this morning.  A phone call from BYU softball coach saying he saw Elder Koenig at church, and then this text...

He is an incredible young man! He has a great spirit about him. He is healthy and couldn't stop smiling.

Gordon Eakin

BYU Softball coach

February 13, 2017

Ya, this week was psycho. so me and my companion are opening an area, so we get here, neither of us know the area at all, we dont have a map, we dont have a list of the members, we dont know any of the members, we dont have a food calendar, which wouldnt be a big deal, except people are planning on us coming to their house and we dont know who they are or where they live. there are a ton of tourists here, and since me and my companion are both white its really hard not to look like tourists, its like we are rich americans in our nice clothes invading their country, i dont think the majority of the population thinks that, but the drunk old men do, and they sure like to let us know it. people tell me my spanish is better than my trainers, which is flattering, but problematic since he's my trainer, sometimes i feel like im training myself. also, our phone stopped charging so we couldnt contact anyone, while our phone was dead we were trying to find the stake center, which is like 2 hours away, on a bus, we werent sure if it was the right bus, and there was a huge detour so we ended up out in ¨Nam and there were cows and jungle and no people and it was scary, but we ended up getting where we needed to go, just a couple hours late. another time we got on a bus going up the hill instead of down the hill, and he gets to the top of this hill, in the middle of the jungle, and tells us to get off because its the end of his route and its his lunch time, so we ended up chilling with him while he ate his lunch and then he took us back down the hill. We have only taught two people so far, we spend most of our time trying to find where investigators live, which is hard because our area is ginormous, i think its the biggest area in the mission. We walk up and down cobblestone hills all day which is awesome (not) and we street contact people, it has been hard, but it will get better. the food is good. my favorite part is these rope bridges in the jungle going over the river, i jump and it makes the whole bridge swing, its kinda like in shrek, my companion is donkey, he doesnt like it very much when i do that. We dont eat dinner in mexico, just like cereal for breakfast and a big lunch with the members and thats it, so im hungry a lot. Im not sure if thats normal for mexico or if my companion just likes to work hard, but its whatever.  My comp is named elder stubbs. he is kinda short, thick built, not super thick, just thicker than me, his spanish is ...functional, i like him, this week has been really really hard so i havent been super talkative, we dont know each other super well yet, hes from provo, he played football and i actually dont really know anything about him. I will send pictures of my apartment next week, its pretty junky, but we have hot water and thats all i need. Let me know whats going on up north. cya

February 8, 2017

I have been on a bus all day, then we went to the store and tried to settle in, i still havent had a chance to change my american dollars to pesos which is a pain in the butt. Im going to start from sunday night, because its been quite the week. So sunday night everyone in my casita was being crazy because it was the last time most of us were going to see each other, so everyone was saying goodbye and staying up talking and stuff, and we had to leave the CCM at 1:30, so i didnt even go to sleep that night because everyone was being crazy, we got to guadalajara and president clayton and his wife picked us up and we went to the stake center next to the temple, they said they knew we were tired, and they knew we wouldnt stay awake, so they sent us on splits. I went to an area called primavera which was on the outskirts of Guadalajara city. I will send you pictures next week maybe because this computer doesnt have a USB. but anyways, Primavera was dirt streets with giant pieces of obsidian all over the place in the road, i wanted to take some and make some arrowheads, but it is probably against mission rules, and i would probably hurt myself. It was maybe the most ghetto place i have ever been, my companion said we were going to a place so hood it wasnt on the map, I thought he was joking, he wasnt. We tried to talk to this one member but the back wall of his house had just collapsed so he was busy fixing it. It was way hot, the dust was like volcanic ash so i was sweating mud. We went into this neighborhood/shanty town where the houses were made of scrap wood, on a lot of the houses the walls were just piles of rocks, the ceilings were all tarp and old cloth, some of them had cloth walls, it was crazy. The companion i was with hadnt been in his area for a week because of changes and training and stuff, so we didnt have any plans. for lunch i got some bread from this guy on the street for 3 pesos, and thats it. We didnt have any appointments so we just walked around and street contacted all day, if i had a fitbit i woulda got all kinds of trophies, I street contacted some people, which went alright, spanish is hard. For dinner we had pizza which was good, then we went back out. Being in mexico at night isnt that scary, because theres a lot of night people, but at like 7:30 after the sun goes down but before the night people come out it is really scary because everybody on the street, which is hardly anyone, looks really scary. I saw nathan schank that morning and we talked a bit, he is training and i was hoping he would train me, but hes not. Also, in our house in primavera there is this thing you plug in to get you hot water, but it kinda points toward the wall, and if youre a short mexican its not a problem, but when youre as tall as me you have to put your face on the wall to get any water. because of this i wondered if i could turn the shower head, so i grabbed the pipe, to which the electric heater was taped, and since my whole body was wet, my whole body got freaking electrocuted, so that was neat. Then the next morning we went to president claytons house and he fed us breakfast which was yummy, and then had some trainings, president claytons wife kinda reminds me of mom. After the trainings we went to the stake center and did more trainings, like safety stuff. There is a lot of wierd rules here because of the cartel, our taxi driver was telling us scary cartel stories. We arent allowed to have more than 4 missionaries together at a time because that looks like the cartel i guess. there are certain ways we answer the phone if we have been kidnapped and stuff. and if we get kidnapped, we still have to wake up at 6:30, excercise, and study as best we can, because apparently exact obedience gives you power, even when youre being held hostage. We got our assignments and i am currently in Puerta Vallarta with Elder Stubbs. we just call it vallarta here. We are opening an area, so neither of us know where we are or whats going on, which is neat, and my spanish is almost as good as his, he understands better than me, but teaching might be hard. It is hot and way humid here, i sweat a lot, and we havent even done much work yet. This week will definitely be an adventure. We met this member earlier that spoke english and she used to live in our area but she moved, but she was telling us to teach her people well and stuff, it was really cool, and she gave us some good advice. We dont have much time so i am just typing one email and copying and pasting it, so spread the love and show people. does mom have an email list? if she does i have people for her to add. I will email you each individually next P day, i love you all. take care and stuff.

February 7, 2017

Dear Families,

We are delighted to have met Elder Koenig. He began today with us here at the mission home

with breakfast and an interview with President Clayton. This second day here in the mission included a full day of training and meeting his new companion,

his trainer, Elder Stubbs.  

His first area will be in Vallarta, in the district of Campestre 2.

We are grateful for your son's willingness of heart and positive attitude. We are grateful for this valiant son of our Father in Heaven as he joins us here in the Guadalajara Mission.

with love,

Sister Clayton

February 6, 2017

Dear families,

I thought I would send just a quick note letting you know that your missionary has arrived safe and sound!

We picked our new missionaries up at the airport this morning, and arranged for them to join a threesome companionship from right here in Guadalajara for their first day of missionary service.  

We begin our first full day of training tomorrow.  

I will send another update with pictures of them with their new trainers, and will let you know of their first assignment in the next few days.

Thank you for your faith and prayers in their behalf.  These first few days will be an adjustment, but we know that Lord will strengthen and bless them as they begin their service.

much love,

Sister Clayton