Greatings from Mexico
Gah did not know you were all that worried about me and the Earthquake. Well I will address that right off the bat. I am fine, we barely fet anything. The Epecenter was down in Oaxaca and Veracruz and so we barely felt anything. It was kindof cool actually. We were sitting at home and all of a sudden the whole room was swaing, the fan and door across the room were swaying and it was a wierd yet awesome sensation. Me and Elder Barben said it would actually have been cool if it happened again. There was no damage and only our neighbor was a bit scared. So I am good no worries. We stayed inside in caase of aftershock or something like that but yeah, we barely felt iit. So now I can say I have been in an Earthquake as well!
I know my Spanish is progressing, just not nearly as fast as I want it to is all. Elder Barben adds more and more to my list of things I have to do in lessons but the wierd thing is he never
tells me when I am actually doing it. Sometimes he will do my part and other times I wont know he is going to call on me. It keeps me on my toes. I know it will come just little mr unpatient here is rushing the gun.
I have had beans here and sometimes they are standable but other times the flavor is over bearing and I have to gag it down haha. Early this week I had a few more cramps from something I ate but I am still good. Tripa was actually alright, but yeah, me and Matt can have a Tripa party when I get home.
Havent had Chineese or Sushi yet but I will one day, haha. Sounds pretty good actually but I will have to be careful, they dont have as many food regualtions here so I could get bad fish.
Catholics.... yeah. They are a peculiar religion... Im not suppose to say much against other religions but lets just say most of them dont even know what they believe in or have even read the bible.
Speaking of Catholics, this weekend has been the Carrera de Virgin de Guadalupe. Which is the Virgin Mary Walk where they take a picture of the Virgin and walk or bike or drive there cars, trucks, buses, RVs, anything for 2 days nonstop. The sad thing is most of them are drunk or VERY anti other religion so we had to be careful and so yeah. Another thing I would like to say is Catholics believe that the Virgin is higher then Christ and God because she gave birth to Christ and they believe in the Trinity so Christ, God and the Espiritu Santo are all the same person. Anyways, so we see alot of Shrines to her. The other thing with her is they did not like Mary so they go and change her name to Gaudalupe so that she is Mexican now. I wont say more but as you can tell they make it pretty easy to proove them incorrect.
Bahaha mom... Yes they have sidewalks and most streets are pavement. They are just cracked and uneven. This is what helped me to describe it. Picture NYC, with a bunch of Hispanic people and little to no other races, and alot more run down and trashy, then you have Mexico City. It is very modern here, just run down. I am sending pictures along with this so yeah.
Speaking of mailing and stuff I found out that our mission has a blog so if you want to take a look at it here is the URL:
http://calledtoservemexico.blogspot.com/ Poke around there and there is probably more details on how to send stuff safely if you would like. Also if you go to November 2011 There are pictures of the day I arrived here in Mexico.
Yeah I know I was a bit over reactive two weeks ago with being sad and what not, but dont worry I aint coming home and that is that, I am doing fine, just mainly the language frustrates me from time to time. I was told by the 12 week mark I should understand the gyst of what everyone is saying. And 6 months is when I should be good to go on the language. I cannot wait!
Ok so this week.... well last monday after I emailed you guys my zone went Ice Skating in Centro, which is pretty much downtown. Yes that is right Ice Skating in Mexico! haha yeah I was terrible though so no worries, killed my feet for the day but yeah, it was fun.
Ok well here is some bad news, almost all of our investigators seem to be dropping or not progressing, meaning we have to drop them. To start remember Eduarda, the older lady whos daughter verbally abuses here. Yeah she is probably going to be dropped because she wont come to church and she cant remember anything we teach her. Its all good though, things seem to be improving for her with her children. From what she has said she is going to go live with her son who is much nicer, but yeah we probably are dropping her this week.
Nancy and Betsy have stopped contacting us, or something happen to them or what not, but they have not talked with us since last week. So we left a note on there door saying to call is when they have time and that was that.
Maria, the lady that let us in right off the bat dropped us because she "prayed" about us and she decided she was good were she was at. The funny thing with her is she was so solid, and she was eating everything up, and thats not even the worst part. On like monday or tuesday we were teaching her and her brother/bible study teacher came in and started railing on us, me of cousre not understading anything. But as you can guess the Spirit left the room, my companion was listening and about halfway through the lesson I felt extremely prompted to bear my testimony, I waited for a when, and when her friend came in the house, I guess for the bible study, I was prompted to talk. So as I let her sit down I interrupted the brothers rant and said Id like to share something. So I bore my testiomny and even though it was simple in spanish I have never born such a stronger testimony in my life. The Spirit flooded the room and everything got all quite and what not. The brother just stood there in aww, the friend was crying, and Maria was near tears. Haha it was AWESOME! But yeah, she still dropped us on sunday when we came to get her to go to church.
Angelica, Brandons, the kid who does drugs, mom and 3 of her children where going to be my first baptizms, but the day of they were uncontactable. We went back to there house like 10 times throughout the day and they were not there at all all day. So tonight where going to o see what is up with them. Hopefully we will baptize them next weekend.
We found a 17 yr old and apparently he was doing drugs alot and he prayed and asked God for help and he stopped. So when we came knocking he let us right in and told us he wanted to pay God back by getting baptized, so he is going to be solid, tomorrow we visit him again so yeah. His name is Marco and we committed him and his Grandma, Marta, to baptizm. They couldnt go to church yesterday so we will have to see about next weekend for there baptizm.
Other then that nothing much has happened this week, I have been extremely tired this week for whatever reason and so yeah, but I think I am good now, this new sleep schedule is still rough for me even after 3 motnhs.
Speaking of 3 months my 3 month mark is wednesday, scary that I have been in Mexico for almost a month. Thrusday is our mission Christmas pàrty so I am excited. We get to watch 2 Disney movies, dont know which ones but yeah.
Well, I think that should do it, I am fine! The Earthquake was minor and so yeah no worries with that. Have fun with everything and keep me posted on new things!
¡Les amo y que tengan una buena semana!
Elder "Tall Son" "Frijoles" "Winzy" "Winnie the Pooh" Winslett
