First Christmas Away From Home

so crazy getting to talk to you guys it was great i really loved it but its gone hahaah whish kinda stinks but its okay back to work hahaha this saturday is my comps birthday hahaha i am looking for a pocket knife for him because he goes crazy over mine hahaha and i am planning a supprise with a member that lives next to us hahaha and were going to have cake and all that hahah they have a tradition here that on your birthday they sing this song and then after you take a bite of the cake with your face and then everyone slams your face in the cake hahaha and you like fight hahaha so were are planning that for him hahah but he doesnt know hahaha i hope it stays like that haha well i hope i get that package soon ahahah i am excited to get my blanket its going to be that much mor e speacial when i get to see it nd use it hahaha ii am also getting ready to send my sd card home i am really worried about it i dont really want to send it hahaha cause i have so many good pictures on it hahaha i hope you still have all my cards hahaha were going to have like 20 by the time i get home hahaha today i am going to buy a new one i love how cheap everything is here hahaha

so idk hahaha oh duh!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whooohoooooo 45 its weird not being home for things ahahaha and instead we help our family return back to our father hahaha how crazy i love youo mom!!!!! i really hope it was something speacial hahaha

so we found this younge girl who is going through rough time which is really sad i really hate seing people go through hard things hahaha like the drunk people ahahaha they just cry when they see us.. there is a saying that the most honest people in the world are children like babies missionaries and drunks hahah or something like that because they always speak the truth but anyways this younge girl is pretty much abandoned and here mom hasnt even searched for here i guess she just left hahaha but she has asked us to come back everyday to to teach her till she knows everything and has gone to church 3 times haha were going to try and get her baptised this saturday if not the next she says yeah your church is different in the catholic church the pastor gets up and teaches the scriptures and in your church members give talks then she pauses...... whn can i talk hhahaha so funny me and elder reyes wee talking and we were like whoa calm down haha gotta be baptised first hahaha we didnt tell her that but it is what we both tought were going to help her the best we canother then that we have a lot of people with dates but they dont really understand the need to be baptised its really frustrating not having anyone come to church with us but i think that its all about to change hahaha i love you all!!!
have a wonderful new year hahaha i hope you all make a goal to share the gospel with a friend like every month hahaha its crazy to think that that is my view on life i know i am a missionary but its crazy to think how much i have changed but its good always remeber to say your prayers i love you!!!!!

elder housotn

1st Transfer!!!

whoa!!!! no email!!!!!! carzy well a lot has happened. i have been transferred i am in 5 de febrero tapachula. my new companion is elder reyes he is mexican and doesnt speak english i love him to death also i am his mom and serving as senior. which mean i am his second companion in his mission he has been out for a month hahaha and doesnt know the area super good but we are both learning hahaha i am senior comp i run the area i have the cell phone i talk to the district and zone leaders i make the calls hahahahaha pretty crazy and quit a big shocker but i have been prepared for this especially for being with the zone leaders for a month and a half. i am also half training because he has so little time he doesnt know everything but he has the erge the know and leran haha sometimes it is rediculous because i dont know what he says to me and he doesnt know aht i say to him hahaha but we are both lerning hahaha i hate this key board it sucks but anyways we are here we have 2 baptisms coming up on 1 de january and to more the following week pretty crazy to think that i have not been home for 6 monhths hahaha not that i am counting or like to think of that but it hit me the other day that it has ebeen that long. this area is very close to the border of guatamala so you can look on the map for tapachula hahaha lets see what more super excited to finally be with a mexican comp and we work well together he talks a lot but i am working on that and he know that he needs to change hahah also i dont know if you have sent them but he also wants and iron rod haha i am sorry maybe send me a bunch then i can just give them to my companions haha cause everyone is super jelous of them hahaha and also elder reyes really likes the tuxtle gutierrez tie tack tht i have even though i cant use it hahaha


christmas is this week que loco right hahaha i am going to call on the 24 around 6 i hope that is okay i can only talk for an hour i guess so i am sorry i dont get to call more this area is sweet very very pretty lots of green lots of amaizing things i love it there s lots of drunk people here that are rediculous in fact 2 nights ago we were talking to a member and these 2 smashed guys came up to us and were asking if we preach and that they know us one wanted to know why we dont drink coffee and we basically told him that he is sinning and need to repent and everything that we said he said exactly hahaha and then his buddy asked for help and we told them both to read the pamphlet word of wisdom and the one started crying and said he doesnt know how to read though he was drunk it was really tender i felt really bad for him then he fell and had no idea why he fell or what was going on really funny

i love you all so much remeber i am calling home at 6 on the 24 friday around 6

elder houston

well i just found this scripture about family hahaha D and C 132:55 yea dad told me the story k loco hahahaha mexican text thats weird hahaha when something is like weird or crazy thats what we say que loco haha well yess i would love to send my little brothers some advice idk do you want me to email them or write them hahaha i will write up some letters and send them off asap hhah because i am almost out of time hahaha ok so this week has been really crazy the president decided to not do transfers because we had elder de oyos come and talk to us he is in the 70 and then we are recieving 30 missionries or something like that and he is super streessed hahaha but on the other hanf there was a elder that went home in our zone and some body needed to go with his companion so i am in a different are now with elder velasco hahaha he is so awesome


so i would again say that i am just like my father hahaha today actually we are walking i had to go to the house and get my money so i could by some food to survive in this are and we have to go do things so we get off the buss and we are walking hahaha and of course we start walking past all these stores hahah and i see just all these cool thing i i want like all of it hahaha and of course i have like 1000 pesos on me hahaha i bought this best hahaha that i cant even use it was only 75 pesos thats like 7 bucks!!! hahaha so sweet idk what to do with it then i bought this little wooded chiapan head statue to hold my pen hahahaha so awesome but i didnt need it hahaha i am gettoing ready to by this hammock when i can find it because elder velasco has one and it really is the best thing ever hahaha i love it there is a whole different way to lay in hammocks hahaha lets seee que mas oh hahahha so i dont know if you guys remember pogs hahaha but guess what they are popular here hsahaha they come in bags of chips i got a collection!!!!! hahaha so sweet

really nothing to crazy other then i am not going to be in my are for a few days and then we have transfers coming up on monday i am pretty sure i dont know i love it here still best place ever hahaha i am excited to take you and dad around but don worry i am focusd we were in a slump for awgile but we finally got some dates for the 1st on janurary and we have a baptism this saturday i am excited that i get to go haha!!!!

i am sorry this letter is a lot shorter i am about out of time i love you all hahahah if you would like another scripue that i love its d and c 123:12-14 haha i love this one hahaha oooor 2nefi 28:30 hahaha ok well i love you all be safe please tell coop iam proud of him and thats what i would do hahaha tell the boys that i am going to send them a letter i love you all be good be safe please dont shoot guns in the house because one you get holes in the walls and 2 well thats just not to great hahaha but i am glad that the ministering angels were around about to help innocent childeren like boe i am glad that no one is hurt and safe be safe!!!!!!

Elder Houston

yup all that info is just amazing because i only got to tallk to jake for about 2 minutes at the airport but he told me he was doing good i didnt know that about colton that really makes me very happy to see my brothers getting together and doing what they are supposed to do that is so sweet that mitchell is about there haahaha man good stuff i did know about johnny though cause actually riley emailed me he is also is pocatello and he told me that his last comp hated him to death well hated johnny hahaha but hey johnny is a different person you got to know how to use his talents its very good to here all that to be honest because i have been keepinmg them in my prayers and wondering hwats going on with thyem.. drake is going ro torrillon i believe thats where my teacher went on his mission he is going to have a really good time hahaha i saw some pictures and then i pictured drake eing there hahaha he is going to have some really good stories i am stoked for him... the truth is i am stoked for everyyone and a cool thing is that a lot of people are being called spanish speaking hahaha that will be interesting after all this is over


i asked president for mission extention and he told me i need to talk to the new president that we are getting in june i beleive because he cant do anything so i have to wait whish is a lil unfortunate because i really just want to know haha i hate that my time is so short but its ok so today i am going to try and send you a video of us cleaning our clothes hahaha you will be impressed i think if i cant then i will send some other pictures that i sent
this week has been really slow we have changed our ways a lot on how to go about teaching because everytime someone excepts a date to be baptised they hide from us and are scared i think we have figured it out the truth is i know that i have figured it out because yesterday i basically got told straight up by the spirit in what were doing wrong and how to better our teachings. i love my comp to death this is our last week together i believe because the truth is that its only a one transfer thing and i will be moved to a different part of mexico but i dont know for sure whats going to happen we will see by next week hahaha woop woop transfer day!!

so lets see the truth is i dont think i need anything hahaha im doing quite well oh when you do send the iron rods send them with something in a box because elder crane got robbed a lil bit hahaha they stole his 10 dollars his bishop sent for his bday hahaha and make sure to put jesus stickers on the box hahahaha

i love the people here so much they are a very interesting people and for some reason we attract the drunk people everytime hahaha this one guy was very lost in his thoughts as he tried to talk to us about jesus and why he has 3 names but he cant figure it out we always take there adresses and tell them to go home go to sleep nd then we will help them cause they all say they want to be closer to god haha in fact there is this one that hangs out close to our house he has been drunk for seriously like 3 months hahaha i have made him cry everytime that we talk to him just by looking at him he says that i have a very stong heart and can feel my spirit hahaha but we are trying to help him i gave him a tie cause e asked for one and we gave him a book of mormon and he read some of it he says he drinks because it calms his nerves and we said the book will calm his nerves to and he said for every letter he read he was in a different world haha idk this guy is crazy but we are trying to help him the thing is that he remembers everything that we talk about and remembers all things that we promise and he promises he just doesnt follow throiugh

i dont know im lovin the life i am make sure you guys are doing missionary work its not only through the missionaries that people find christ more then anything is the members because we are the examples through being membershmmm i am not really sure what more to say at this point i love you all have a wonderful week!!!!!!

Elder Houston

Email of the Week...

Ok everyone, I think this is one of the hardest emails I have had to translate of Elder Houston so far!

Man....good luck. To funny! He also sent some pictures. They are from his last email that he sent with the story of their hike and the baptism.

this week was preety good nothing to exciting happened to be honest i am going to try and send some pictures after i write president last time i couldnt get them to work so we will see i dont remember everything i told you last week but i will try to send the pictures and video of us filling up the baptismal font with buckets jhhahaha ok so something we did is went on another short cut trail this time was better except it smelt like poop and the next thing i find is just straight up nast hahaha

we had a zone conference that i didnt get to go to cause i had to go and finish up some final visa paperwork but i got to see all my buddies again so that was awesome oh i and i dont know if you remember but when i was in the mtc there was a elder that got his visa denied and got reassigned to arizona we he finally got his visa aswell so i have seen him a few times he is really funny. its funny cause the hispanic missionaries here are trying to learn english so sometimes for language study i make them talk to me in english and man its very humbling oh duh so back to this zone conference thing so we made it back in time for lunch and a practice and for luch we had tacos from this lady that has a taco stand she is a member so she made like 200 tacos there was bean tacos shredded beef tacos steak tacos chickn taco and shrip and egg taco... the prolem is i am having a hard time with onions i handled it well but after i ate i knew something wasnt right like the steak wasnt cooked right and on top of that we had posol to drink what it is is choped up corn doe water and chocolate and maybe something else well everyone goes nuts over this stuff and i hate it is so nasty hahha while you drink it you have to stir the drink well swirl otherwise at the end of your cup you have just straight up nasty hahaha it tastes like sandy chocolate that is fermented hahahaa and you are supposed to drink everything so i did hahaha the second time i had drank it i had learned hahaha but anyways i dont like this drink anyways so we finihed up but i could feel that something wasnt right like i was going to be sick..... right before we go to bed elder rice gets dominated but e said i think thats all of it hahaha here comes i would say 1 i wake up to elder rice coming in to the room just moaning saying that was worse hahaha then as i try to fall back asleep it hits me this was bad cause idk what the deal was but you cant hold it at all i ran to the bathroom and it was fool of just cow nast o my goodness so i ran to the other one barely making it hahaha anyways this is how the whole night went with me and elder rice in the morning i tell elder crane what happened and he was like what yopu to!!!!! the we asked the other 2 elders that live with us them to so we have sick and all 6 of us got dominated all night then we call the zone..... the entire zone got sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 missionaries had the same exact story!!!! so funny some of them live with 4 or 6 missionaries but with one bathroom ahaahahahaha craziest thing ever hahaha elder rice is barely getting better.

last night the stake put on a program with the book of mormon they like acted out people in the bom and just like idk i was talking to this other elder and he said in english to me(he is mexican) that was straight up apostacy hahahaa i was laughing so hard hahaha the was they did was like scary like they did the first vision of joseph smith and it looked like he was in pain and being attacked hahaha so i didnt enjoy it at all but at the end all the missionaries sang to the investigators the armies of heleman awe man but it was a crazy week we didnt do anything for thanksgiving they dont have it here hahaha so it was a normal day but i love it here so much i really do hahaha its like the best place on earth but idk i love you all other then that nothing happened hahaha love you!!!!!

elder houston

View from their apartment

Going tracting

Preaching the gospel

Layover in Mexico City

Big Picture they Found

Finally in Tuxlta Gutierrez Mexico

Doing his laundry

On their adventerous short cut

short cut

1st Full Week in Mexico

So here is Coltens 1st full week in his area. I had hoped that the practice he was having of sending emails would've improved somewhat with his typing and all, but no luck! Hopefully you all have had time to practice "reading" them ha ha! I love this Elder more than anything! Have fun, not a lot of "ha ha" breaks as before, but an awesome email!


my adress is...
Misíon México Tuxtla Gutiérrez
Calle Jazmines #210
Fraccionamiento Los Laureles
Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México
C.P 29020

so this is my adresss om the return adress you need to put your name on tope them under your name you put my name as elder colten jesse houston then your adress at least thats what i think your supposed to do hahaha actually yes do hat elder crane told me to just tape it up real good and to put jesus stickers all over it and your will be ok he said none of his packages have been messed with and he has 19 months out ok so enough of tht hahahoh wait also send me 3 hold to the rod key chains in spanish and 3 cains these boys want them hahaha at least elder skinner and elder crane oh and i need them by 3 months cause thats when he goes home haha ok

so this week was super fun we had some pretty good days ha so lets seee what shall i tell you ok so we go up this hill and were looking out to our area super sweet and we decide to go over there but hte only probñem is that everything is gated now when things are gated here your dont go in you dont jump the fence because theres gaurds and they always have these huge guns ahhaa so we walk down this path and we are contacting these houses amd asking for a way to to get across this feild they say yeah you just go through the field or next to it or something and and theres this path so we go to the next house and ask and he says yea just go through the feild its ok its my land so we so okay we go through this barb wire fence and start walking its the most randm field but kinda cool the lady warned us of torros and dogs so were walking and decided to take some pictures and just have a good tome go through another barb wire fence and through another field then we see this road thats where we are headed and then we look to the right and on the other side of the fence is the dang path!!!!! the one we have been looking for the whole time haha i bet you thought maybe something crazy was going to happen but no so we get on the path we see some cows read some scriptures to them and went on our way we get to a paved road finally and decided to go left we come to this gaurd and he looks pretty grumpy we decide to contact him by telling him we are looking for houses that arent gated so we can share this message with them and he says what message well we have this book called el libro de mormon and its another testament of jesus christ so what he does is quote the book of revelations where it says that no one can take and add to this book when really it is only talking about the book of revelation not the bible cause it also says it somewhere in duteronomy but anyways he says this well he yells this at us and says we only use the word jesuschrist to get people attention and elder crane looks at him amd says whoa... have i done anything to make you mad? he says no and he says well have i said anyhting against jesus or god? he says no and then the guys says no its just my character and atitude hahah but we softened him up and told him that we wanted to gve him this book and he said thank you and he will study it then we asked if he wanted our number and he pulls a recipe out of his wallet and writes it down and said he will call... so we left that just being stoked hahha were walking and theres a group pf houses that were being build but there were no gaurds so we decided to see if anyone lives there no one did but i look to the left and i see this masion holy smokes the biggest house i have ever seen in my life i took a picture from the side... so then we continue on our way and this guys in a escalade yells elders!!! and waves then goes on his way we didnt know him or recognize him so we continue walking and we come to the house and it has a huge porton!!! neaning huge door and there were no gaurds!! so i say welp im going to contact it... now usually when we contact rich people they says no thanks cause they have eveything that they need so this is what elder crane says to me.. ok go for it good luck cause there probably not going to want to listen but i got your back... i to the left there is a little door and a bell i ring it and it ends up being a bell tower hahha we are waiting i say about 5 minutes i say well i guess there house is to big to hear there own bell take a step back and the hole in the door opens and says elder!!!!! how are you hows the mission? all in english stuns me? we ask are you a member? nope have you talked to missionaries before? mope yor the first ones how can i help you well after the greet it was all spanish we said well we have a message for you and your family he says ok how long we say 20 minutes maybe a little longer he says ok come in!!!! whattt!!!!!!! we go in craziest thing hapeens and he says yes the mormon church is the only one that i dont know so he wants to know about it then we teach him a small lesson this guy is just golden he asks all the most amazing questions he is making his 25 year old kid sit down and listen and syas this is good for your family to you need this so he sits down then he stops us and says listen this isnt what i want to know right now i have one question for you... i saw you guys talking to the cop preaching to him and he guys just come here nd walk around all day preaching and telling people about the church.. why what makes you run why are you doing this you have this energy that makes you do this i want this i want what you have how do i get it hahha just like what the heck!!! craziest question ever super sweet but then he goes off on something else never got to answer his question cause we had to go to our next lesson but man he also said we are always welcome to him home and the whole family is just golded man crazy day that was...... so the next night we have a baptism and the water isnt pumping to the tank... ok i will explain the plumbing here they hve the tank in the ground when it is empty it fills up kinda like a hourse trough so all we do is flip this braker and it pumps the water to this tank above the house then we turn off the braker when we need water we get it though the gravity pull off the water and that is how everything is here.. so the pump is broken at the church there is a window next to the font so we decided to do it good old bucket style fill a bucket throw the water through the window hahhaa then we did that for about 45 minutes haha i took pictures dont worry then that pump breaks ans doesnt give us anymore water holy smokes the font was like thigh deep hahha we decided to press forwarward and deal with it baptism presumes and so everytime they tried to dunk thiskid something would pop up haha and he had to be baptised 4 times poor guy they ended up doing it from there knees man what a night idk what else to say hahaha we went through this secret passage way haaha were always looking for shortcuts now we wnt through this one but it eneded being the worst thing ever walking though and ever and under trees wasnt a short cut at all hahaha the combis are the bomb idk i love mexico its the best drunk people are rediculous i am telling you hahaha so funny but sometimes pitiful we contact them sometimes but other then that we are teaching a lot i am learning the ways of the mexicans its pretty awesome try and get that package here before christmas that would be best i am only going to be with elder crane for 3 more weeks cause he is zone leader and since we were a suprise thats who we got put with to help us elder skinner is so sweet he helps me a ton and he was a wrestler and is a small guy like me people ask us if we are brothers all the time we both have blue eyes ad blonde hair hahaha but yea i am loving it i hope everything is good the barn looks awesome i love you all!!!!!

elder houston

Hello From Tuxtla Gutierrez Mexico!

hahaha i forgot about the package i am sorry i will send it to you you next week... ok that was a good letter tell this to braiden for me..... i am super sorry i wanted to talk to you really bad and i didnt have enough time but i promise that i will talk to him on christmas next month mark it on your calender and everything and i will talk to you.... and amber i am super sorry i had a ton of time in mexico but none ofe us could figure out how to use the phones hahah it was all in spansih and had never heard those words hahaha but i will talk to you christmas i promise... actually all of you have iphones now well at leat mom does so this is what i can do you guys need to learn how to do conference calls and i can talk to all of you at onvce but i promise that i will talk to amber and braiden seperate i feel really bad... ok so this week i have literally not stopped smiling i love it here so much it is the bomb i swear hahaha number one this i like the most is the travel hahahaha they have a ton of these little vans that drive around they are called combis hahahha and we get on give them nine pesos and they just put around untill we pull the horn they pull obver and were good to go hahha but holy smokes over the hill in my area is straight up jungle we are going there this week because they have never tracked there and now we have 4 elders in the area so they are going to visit our investigators and were going to baptise everyone over there hahhaa we wash laundy by hand i took a video and explained what you do hahhaa but i havent figured out how to send these things home hahahaha so lets see what more... my comps name is elder crane he is super sweet he talks to me in spanish and is super patient with me which i am really grateful and he is helping me get out of my bubble that i was in for awhile hahha everybody asks me though... why dont you talk? well acually they ask my companion hahaha and i just laugh hahaha but i am getting better everyone wants the gospel here i swear its so sweet we already have 2 batismal dates with these sisters and we were and this inactive members home because the man wants to go back to church and the daughters want to get baptised but the mom converted back to catholicism and isnt letting the girls but miecoles we have a lesson with her to figure out what the deal cause something isnt right we could feel it... lets see what more everyone lets us in and invites us back hahha so thats a good thing to.... the bag idk what to do with it hahha auction it to the boys and put it in a box and save it for me and five it to justin for a scripture bag or one of the boys thats what i did with it idk but i got to go i love you all so much...

oh yeah give this to grandma for me i dont have time to look up here email... grandma geenie i love you so much just know that we have these struggles for a reason and it is for our good and when we endure them well we will be put on high and as long as we trust our heavenly father he will help us through anything that we need because we are all children of him and he loves us very much and grandma i know that he especially loves you and is watching over you just follow our brother jesus christ read our book of mormon eveyday and talk with the lord about our troubles and he will help us i love you grandma very much i keep you in my prayers everyday and i want you to know i am really happy to have you as my grandma and i was super happy to see you texas because you are such a blessing... you always are helping us though our troubles and now we are going to help you well i cant do much cause i am in mexico but everyone loves you especially me i want you to know that because all through my life you have been involved with me coming on field trips leting me and mitchell spend the night taking us to that super sweet mcdonalds where it has the water things and always having loads of toys for us to play with... i love you grandma you are the best!!!!!!

elder houston