Things are going GREAT!

Ok sorry this letter is getting home so late, we got home from todays zone activity late so we didnt email and then president called asking why we didnt write him, so we got permisison to come ont he internet at this hour. 

     General conference, wow, why did they wait untill i was a missionary to make it so interesting, or why did i wait untill my mission to really feast upon it? Dont mean to sound selfish but im pretty sure most of it was just for me, so sorry to the world! But as you can tell i really enjoyed every bit of it, all of the Talks were so amazing, saturday mornign was great, Bednars talk was amazing and Elder Scott made me trunky jajaja! ANd yes again we got to watch it in English, and President Hansen joined us for preisthood session, so that was a nice surprise!

  

    And now onto the news of the area for the week, well holy cow its hot hear, hot hot hot! Veracruze should change its motto to DANG ITS HOT! Im going to be looking like a lamanite befrore i leve this place! Well unfiortunatly work was pretty slow this week, nobody here wants to do anything when its hot, especially when nobody has good ol AC. But we accepted what work we got and its as follows.

 

      We are workign with a 53ish year old woman named Anna, she also has 2 young Granddaughters.  THey were people we found knocking doors, it was a very insirational finde o be honest.  We have tuaght them the restoration adn the Plan of salvation.  She acepted a date for the 3rd of april well, but we didnt feel that she was ready so we pushed it back a little.  We have  to talk to her to get a confirmed date.  She has a very hard life, works int he field all day long and lives off of just more than nothing.  Does everything she can for her Grand Daughters,  Right now she needs this church more than anything, so hopefully she wil follow our help! We are also teachign her how to read, she is slowly but surly progressing.  ITs just hard to meet with her because of her crazy work schedual.

 

   Then we surgio, hw is the son of a previously inactive sister.  We also found them divinly, and we talked with her.  She had been taking lessons from the Jehova witnesses and going to church with them.  SO we cleared things up. SHe still gets mixed up with all of thier garbage but we will straighten things out.  NAd because her son has 10 year that mean he is under our responsibility to be baptize so we have jumped right on that blessign! Hopefully we will Baptize him and Hermana Anna next week!

 

  THen we still have Rosio and Vicente and Tomasa, thank you for the suggestions with them.  We havent been able to have a normal lesson with them all week, wich had been extremly frustrating, so hopefully this week we will drop in and get Tomasa to accept a date and Rosio and >Vicente to get plans together to get married.  Vicente still lacks coming to church, so we gotta wipp him into shape on that.  We just really need to get them all to get seriouse about all this.  BUt it will come.

 

    But thats out bit of work that we have right now, felling pretty pressed, but doing all i can do for them, so hopefully things will follow through for them, it sure would help them alot! The transfer ends april 19th, so hopefully all of these above plans will follow through by then, im certainly planning on busting my butt to make it happen.  But thats the week! Hope all is well at home, i certainly do love you all and hope the best for ya

Transfer 1. Week 1. (in Mexico)

Well, I finally made it to Mexico. And let me tell you, if the MTC hadn't been so bad, I would say this was the longest week of my life.  Culture shock has taken on a whole new meaning in my mind. During my first few days, I was absolutely blown away, not to mention how hot it is. It's so freaking hot and humid here. 


Location
So, where I am . . . I am in Tierra Blanca.  It's a city in the southern part near the border with Oxaca. This is the hottest area in the whole mission, but I guess I would rather start here so that everywhere else seems to be a lot better.  


Culture
The culture is so different than I expected. We can speculate based on what we see at home, but really, it's so different than what I ever imagined. It's crazy. The food has been alright. Most of these houses are made out of cinderblocks and tin roofs, which is nice. I guess it keeps us dry. I learned how to wash my clothes by hand today, and I'm working really hard at getting used to using only cold water for a shower. But I'm here for a reason! 


Companion
So my companion is Elder Castaneda. His parents are the Mission Presidents of the nearby Villermosa Mission. He is a good Elder, and most importantly he is obedient. I have a lot to learn about living here--it's crazy. There is just so much that I don't know yet, but I will learn in time. Fortunately, I'm not dong this alone.  


The Mission
The baptism rate here seems to be about the same as SLC South Mission surprisingly. It's kinda crazy, but many of them sadly go inactive, so I'm starting to think that I would rather baptize people that will actually stay members instead of just baptizing tons of people. Quality over quantity I guess. But no worries, all is good.  Because of the hurricane, they had us all stay in the stake center. There were about 15 missionaries there. I got to talk to other greenies and learn a lot about how to live in this mission and what not, which is really helpful because any Mexican companion won't be able to understand where I'm coming from and why I do things the way I do. The way this culture thinks is so very different from our own--it's crazy.  But all is well. I'm learning and doing my best to stay positive and just process everything.  We don't have any flodding here, we just got some rain. There are alot of fruit trees everywhere, but unfortunately it's not mango season yet.  But all is well.  


Family, I love you and thank you for everything. My piece of advice for you guys is to enjoy everything you have because a lot of the things you have don't exist all over the world. Believe me, I know. But I love you all! Hopefully I will have more interesting things to tell you next week!