Week 3: The adventures of the miraculous toilet

Well Zach is in his third week in the Mexico CCM.  Zach has been getting A LOT of emails, which he is very grateful for, but he just cant respond personally to everyone as he would like with his allotted 40 minutes on p-day. If you would like Elder Van Pelt to write you back personally, I have posted his address here on the blog page in the right handed section. There is also an awesome tool that we have while he is in the CCM called:

www.dearelder.com

At Dear Elder, you can type your letter as an email and the site will print it out and deliver it to Elder Van Pelt there at the Mexico MTC. I'm sure it would be a boost for him to receive some of your letters through out the week and not just all of them on Tuesdays.

Anyways Elder Van Pelt is having a much better week and has received some much needed help from the Lord. As he told us in his last email, he was having a hard time getting along with his companion. One of the area 70's taught a lesson about needing to love one another which he has tried to apply to the situation. He and his companion also were taught some teaching methods in their classes, which he said has cleared up a lot of the problems they were having while trying to decide how to teach their investigators. Zach says that he owes all of his success thus far to the Lord, Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost.

Zach also was able to witness the power of the priesthood this week. One of the Elders was injured injured his foot while they were playing soccer with some of the natives last p-day and was unable to put any weight on it. It turned out being bad enough that he needed crutches to get around. That night the district leader gave the Elder a blessing, when he finished Elder Dyer stood up and walked with no trouble. Zach was really excited to be a part of this small miracle.

Elder Van Pelt has still had some troubles with the language but still tries to focus and just let the Lord guide him.  An inspiration that he mentioned is our Father who has dyslexia. Zach mentioned that because our dad has been able to overcome some of the difficulties with his disability, that he too can learn the Spanish language.  He is also trying to smile more. He has found that  more people like to talk to him when he is smiling all the time. Though he misses his family and friends, especially his little niece Tegan, he has realized more than ever that Heavenly Father loves him and is blessing him with lots of tender mercies.

A tender mercy he felt was blog worthy this week is what I will call the tale of the miraculous toilet. Zach first woke up at 5:45 one morning and for some reason really needed to go to the bathroom. Typically he doesn't need to this early (great now we know his baño schedule). Turns out the water stopped working promptly at 6:00, so he dodged a bullet there.  Later that day at about 10:00 AM, he again had to use the bathroom really bad, however the toilets were still down. Zach said a quick prayer that he either wouldn't have an accident all over himself or that the lord would fix the water in the toilet. He went to the toilet, pushed the knob and it flushed! His prayer was answered, and this was not any magic voodoo people, it was god who cares about all of us and is always listening, even when we are just praying about the toilet.

Elder Van Pelt had a few other events happen this week he wrote about. He watched the movie "John Tanner", which he would recommend to everyone because he cried the entire time. He also had the opportunity to give Hermana Chamberlin a blessing without knowing what was wrong. He had to rely on the spirit and can't remember anything he said but felt like God was truly speaking through him and he felt so strong because of it. He was also able to go to the Mexico City Temple today and LOVED it.

Well that is all for this week, keep Elder Van Pelt in your thoughts and prayers, because I know he keeps all of you in his. I am going to make an effort this week to smile more like Elder Van Pelt mentioned and I challenge all of you to try also. It is a beautiful world and we have this beautiful gospel, BE HAPPY!

Hasta Luego!