Jacob Maximiliano Rivera Cortez

 I don't really have a title this week, but I was informed by my companion that if I was from México this would be my name cause everyone here has about 8 names. 

Lets see. This week wasn't all that eventful, but I suppose I should write anyway lest the wrath of those who for some reason enjoy my dumb ol’ letters be invoked. 

Túz day- we had our final exchanges of the transfer. I was with Elder Randall from Montana. We didn't have a ton of things to do. We went to the Stake Presidents house (who I'm convinced is way to nice of a man to be a Stake President) to eat. 4 missionaries went, and we had pezole and they always have tostada shells with crema, and I once in another letter mentioned it, but the shells with crema are the greatest food on the planet. Afterwards we walked back through Cañada (the coolest part of the mission) and went back to the church and then Elder Randall’s area, which is really cool. We only had one lesson that night so me and Elder Randall went to the store and bought some ice cream (yeah apostate I know) cause ice cream is not popular here. As wise elder Luis put it and I translate “It's a rich mans food" even though the ice cream was only like 30 pesos. 

The next day, for some reason, my companion tried to put me through math lessons and oh boy I was not having that. I refused to do it cause math literally makes me angry. Apparently my companion loves it but I just told him to do the math himself and that the reason I came on a mission mission so I could escape going to school for two years and not do math. Now thats not actually why I came on a mission but just so you know,  I hate math. We later went to eat with a member for lunch and it was kinda awkward cause she was talking about the bible, and just to make conversation I mentioned that sometimes the old testament is a little confusing and she took that as me not knowing what the old testament was and proceeded to lecture me on what it actually was and then started to tell me about some Prophet named Moses that I had never heard of. Thats about all that happened that day. I felt like I had called about 70,000 people and got about 3 to answer. 

Thursday. Continuing the trend. Not that much happened but in the morning we visited Norma. Norma is the woman I almost drowned in the baptismal font. She’s very nice, but I literally only planned on sharing a single verse cause this Lady can TALK. She told us quite an amusing story actually. She said one of these past weeks, She was looking on Facebook for work, and she saw a job cleaning an apartment in Los Angeles. For some reason this 60 something year old woman, inquired of the job even though She didn't have a passport or anything. They told her "oh you don't need a passport we got you covered" she continued to inquire even though there was red flags. Long story short, she inquired enough to get them to tell her it was actually a job transporting cocaine and her job would be to tie it in a little pouch, swallow it, and later digest it out and wash it for consumer use. She told us as a new member of the church and with the Word of Wisdom she knew it was wrong so I suppose if I've done anything on my mission its save a grandma from a life of drug dealing. Also Norma told me i have bags under my eyelids cause I eat too much salt. So yeah. 

Friday was our interviews with president. Quite stress free cause he's really nice. I also got a package from my parents with a large bag of HiChews and I have literally not stopped eating them. (Also Ben and Joe I got some "Shweet and Shalty Nut" bars too)

We had to hurry home and drop off the box at home and then go to Quma for lunch with some members. We walked past this abandoned house that must have been overrun by a gang cause it had all these symbols and guns and pentagrams on it. It was a little creepy. 

Saturday night was a ward activity for Día de Muertos. The made an ofrenda with pan de Muertos and Mexican hot chocolate and those are both so freaking good. Me and my companion had to stare a brief message with the ward but It wasn't too eventful. The activity was fun though. 

Sunday at church, a returned missionary and his family were at church and it was so weird to see a random American family just sitting in a Mexican Sacrament meeting and I realized how much I must stand out. The family was nice and we talked with them for a bit after church. They're from Colorado or something. We taught a couple lessons with members and for lunch we went to Quma and had gorditas and oh man they're good. We made a Facebook video that I sadly had to be a part of. We almost did a live but luckily I convinced my companion a video was far better. These past few nights, the streets have been very lively with Day-of-the-Dead festivities and me and my companion are gonna go walk around an area in the mission for day of the dead today and I'm excited. Also last night we tried to make our own Halloween costumes by switching tags, but in the picture you can’t even read them. 

Alright bye

Ps I'm so sad to be missing the reign of Cam Rising at Utah.

Pic 1 our "Halloween costumes"

Pic 2 the view from the other area

Pic 3 a tamale torta I forgot to mention. Literally its just a tamale in between bread but holy crap its good.