Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Herding the Goats
Happy Dia de los Muertos! Here in Mexico they do celebrate Halloween, but it is much different. It is also called dia de los muertos and is 3 days long. On each day they put offerings on the graves of deceased relatives and the traditional belief is that the spirits of the dead come and eat the food. So they put out all the things the person liked which for the most part is bread, tequila, and tomoles haha. I have been told that only the rich people here dress up, but most of the kids do go trick or treating.
This week was a little crazy. We have been visiting with a guy named Fransisco. His wife is a member who has been inactive but has recently reactivated. We are just waiting on them to get married and he will get baptized. We have a few other new investigators this week but it is still too early to tell what will happen with them. There is an elderly couple of missionaries (Los Velazquez) here in Zicatela who have been here for 7 months and Elder Velazquez has been President of the branch. Last week they took us to lunch at an awesome beach and we watched all the surfers and ate fish tacos. Then this week they took us to a place called the Cafecito and we had some hot chocolate and fresh bread and watched the surfers again. They end their mission this Thursday. Last Monday we were eating with them and I asked them about their plans after their mission. I was fully expecting vacations or relax or something like that but everything they told me had to do with their plans in the gospel. They told me of plans to serve in the temple and their plans for activating their kids in the gospel. It really strengthens my testimony a lot to see people so dedicated to the gospel that their mind is only set on what more they can do to help in the work.
This week was good. We had zone conference as I mentioned in a place called Huatulco which is about 3 hours away from Puerto. We went there Monday night and slept in one of the mission houses there with 8 of us in total. It was crammed but it was awesome. They made chocolate chip pancakes with a bag of 10 dollar chocolate chips haha. Then we went to the conference the next day and President Leyva spoke and also Elder Duncan who is a member of the seventies spoke. He talked about a lot of different facets of missionary work but his overall theme was love. He talked about the relationship we have with everyone who lives on the earth and the potential every one has. It was really good and I left feeling re-energized. I also really like riding in the buses here haha. We are working with the same investigators we have had for the whole change and as of right now we have about 8 people that we are teaching. Tonight we are going to have a family home evening with one of the coolest families in the ward and this morning we woke up at 6 to go make the cookies you sent me so that we can take them there. We had our first English class this week and had a grand total of 2 people attend- Elder Prince and me. I love the Mexican culture, but one thing that is irritating is that they always say they will do things but then they don't do them. I'm not sure if its because they are too nice to say no or what it is, but it happens a lot and that happened with English.
This week was good. We are still working with Humberto and his family, and they are doing well. We had the District Leader come this week from their area which is an hour away to go with them but when we got to their house they weren't home and so we waited about an hour and they still didn't arrive so we left and they had to drive back another hour. But this week we have a baptism of an 8 year old kid and we are going to take them to that so they can see what it is like. We have been working a lot with less active and inactive members and 2 of the families that we have been visiting have re activated. We are also teaching another guy named Francisco and are just waiting for his birth certificate to arrive from his pueblo so that he can get married and then baptized. I am feeling more comfortable with the mission and with my responsibilities and Elder Prince and I are becoming better and better friends. But we have changes next week so we will see what happens. I want to stay so that I can avoid having to pack haha but either way will be good. This coming week we have 4 family home evenings and are teaching English classes and Elder Prince is teaching piano. Its going to be a crazy week but I'm excited. I love you guys a lot, thanks for everything you do.
Hasta luego.
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