1-31-11

This week was pretty good, Im in my new area, and I like it alot, Im still getting adapted to it and to my new companion. His name is Elder Guerrero, he is a cool guy and is a good missionary, we are having fun together and are having a lot of success, we already have a baptism coming up for this Saturday! My area is called La Joya, and its all just a big hill, so now Im having to get use to walking up and down steep unpaved roads! Its basically just a long hike everyday haha and This is probably the poorest area that I have been in so far, the people really dont have much but they are good and humble people, teh members are very nice and help us in the work which is really the most important factor in missionary work, if the members dont help us out its hard to have to much success. We live in a house with another companionship and one of them is American so its nice to be able to hang out with him in the mornings and nights! I guess my Spanish is getting good because everyone in this area tells me how good I speak and they tell me how much better I talk than the last elder that was in this area! The mission has become a lot more enjoyable since Ive gotten better at Spanish! I dont know why they keep changing me so much, I get change more than anyone else in the mission haha! I guess its a good thing though because Im always meeting new people and getting to know different parts of my mission! The thing I dont like about it is that, while Im in an area I begin to have love for the people that Im teaching and they change me before I get a chance to baptize them! I guess thats okay though, I feel good and comfortable in my new area and Im excited to keep working hard! So I guess I still keep losing weight because I already need to get my pants re sized again haha! So the house that I live in now probably has the worst water Ive seen in my mission, we cant use it to wash our clothes because it will stain them brown and yellow! I dont even know why I take showers here I think it just makes me dirtier haha! I will send some pictures of the water in another email! But other than the water, the house is pretty nice!

Well let me tell you about my week!

Monday I was still In Juchitan and i still didnt know if I was getting changed or not, because they always call on the last Saturday of the change but the president was traveling so he didnt make the transfers until Monday in the afternoon, so I got a cal and they told me I was going back to Oaxaca, which is a 6 hour bus ride haha! so I had to pack real fast and and be at the bus station that night! We left at about 12 am

Tuesday, when I woke up I was in oaxaca, From the bus station I went to my new area and met my companion and unpacked a little bit then we went out and worked, we pretty much just had to get to know the area and the members! Then for dinner we had my favorite food here, Tacos Al Pastor, a member in our area owns a taco shop so we get to each there for free when ever we want!

Wed we had a zone meeting in the morning and we made our goals for teh upcoming change our goal for our area is 5 baptisms! After that we went to Bodega, which is a knock off Walmart, to buy some food for the week, then we went to Coppel which is like a Ross, and I got some new shoes, because my old ones had a ton of holes in them, and it made it really hard to walk up and down the hills in our area! After that we went out and worked and taught some good lessons, I really like the way my companion teaches, because he is like me and likes to teach with more examples and to have fun while you teach! He is also like me in the sense that he is always smiling! People always ask us why we are so happy and we say because we are Mormon haha and then they always ask to know more about what we do!

Thursday, we went out and taught Thomas, he just got baptized, and he is 78 years old and his wife is 26, haha I really dont get it but I am just use to the crazy! After than we taught some more lessons and had a family home evening with the family that we are going to baptize soon, one of them is getting baptized this saturday but the rest of the family wont be for a week or 2! They are a very humble family who really don't have much, but are happy and content with what they have!

Friday me and Elder Henze, the other American elder that I live with, made a ghetto washing machine, so here we obviously wash our clothes by hand, but I got an idea to make it easier and faster, so we went and bought a returnable coca cola bottle, ( here they have like thicker bottles with coca cola and they are cheaper because after you drink it you just take the bottle back to the store and the coca cola truck comes and picks them up and they reuse them) so we got one of those because its thicker and stronger plastic so we got a knife and cut it in half and stuck a broom stick on the end and now we use it to wash our clothes that are in a bucket haha, its kinda hard to explain, but Ill send a picture! and not really too much happened the rest of the day, just a regular day, oh but at night when we went to buy some Tlyudas from a member who doesnt have much money, some drunk guy wanted to fight me! I really dont know why, maybe he just doesnt like white people or maybe it was just because we was a crazy drunk! But after that nothing else really exciting happened!

Saturday was also kinda slow day but pretty good! At night we went to a families house and they were chopping wood for their fire, so they could cook their food, and I told them I would help and they just laughed and said that I wouldnt know how, because Gringos would never need to cut wood with an axe haha, So I just laughed and said well lets see if I can, so I started and they we just all amazed that I knew how and that I could hit the wood so hard haha. But they where grateful because they were all woman and weren't strong enough to cut it!

Sunday was a pretty good day, I got to meet the members of the ward, there are probably like 80 active members which isnt too bad because our area isnt too big! After church we went and had lunch at the bishops house, then went and worked and had a family home evening with some less actives, which went really well!