Slowly trudging along

Tuesday. I think hitting my 4 month mark has made me feel like I've been in the mission for so long but still feel like I'm not a dent in my mission was a thought that I kept having to start the week. We went to a place near Quma to visit the guy with one leg, who has no windows, half a roof, plant growth in his house, and literally NOBODY to visit him and every time I've ever talked to that guy he's been in a great mood. After we visited the other guy with no leg and the lady he lives with who's so nice and they gave us some rice. Apparently Mexicans put bananas, jalapeños, and peanuts on their rice. It wasn't actually that gross. Later we finally returned to the main part of the area for another lesson with a guy named Silvestre. Silvestre has a little shop where he sells tools and stuff right out of his garage and literally, I have walked past him everyday of my mission and said like good morning and stuff but never actually had talked to him until late last week. We kinda just walked up to him and asked if he was interested and he said yes. We taught him tonight (well Tuesday night) and we explained about Joseph Smith. I am so awful at explaining the story of Joseph Smith in Spanish and I was super embarrassed and kinda just had to force myself to talk even though it was all rubbish. At the end of the lesson I kinda just blurted out and asked if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes for some reason even though I was just surprised he understood my Spanish. Afterwards we shook his hand and I made the random observation that he is missing half of two fingers on his right hand. Also it was kinda awkward cause as we were walking out of his house I stepped in freaking dog crap.

Wednesday were in the church most of the day, and I was so cold that day for some reason. I think its cause our house is always cold and our gas is busted so we don't have hot water. Some sister from the ward brought us lunch. It was like salad with chicken (and I side of spaghetti like normal) but she threw in a little bag of salsa. Normally, the salsa here is a little spicy but it's good so I poured a whole bunch on my salad but oh my goodness it was the hottest salsa on planet earth I'm not kidding. I was dying and tears were coming out of my eyes and my nose was running and I couldn't even concentrate on ANYTHING my companion was trying to say. I literally couldn't even eat after cause I was still recovering from the world was 2 level invasion my mouth was recovering from. The rest of the night was slow. We had 1 lesson with Maria and Santiago in their Papelería. They’re really nice people but going there is not my favorite activity cause all they do is talk and sometimes Santiago talks about weird things like the Blood of Christ or something.

Thursday was our first exchanges of the transfer, but first in classic missionary fashion, I locked the freaking Keys in the house. I had left them on my desk which is close to the front window. Luckily the front window was open but there's bars on the Window and the desk is just out of arms reach so I'm looking around for something something to reach in the window with, and all there was was a random neighbors hose (garden hose to clear up any confusion) so I put the hose through the window and started whipping it around trying to knock the stupid keys of the desk. It turns out the hose was leaking, so I was just spraying water all over the house. I finally got the keys off the desk, but I couldn't drag them to the window. We ended up leaving to go to a nearby field and we found a large tree branch, we tied a little wire on the end and that did the trick, but for a second there I thought we'd have to be hermits and live amongst the dogs if we didn't have our keys. Anyway, exchanges. I was with a new elder in the district (not new on a mission just the district). His name is Elder Bahena. Let me just describe him really quick. He's um quite large. The only reason I even bring that up is because I kept accidentally calling him elder "Ballena" or "Ballenas" which is quite similar to his actual name but ballena literally means whale in Spanish (which I didn't know at the time) so I was literally just calling this large elder Elder Whale. Elder wha-bahena is nice, he just doesn't like to do anything. We had 3 lessons that day and I was just waiting for him to say a single word but every time I turned to him in a lesson he just nodded at me to continue so I'm kinda glad that I got my exchange with him over with.

Friday I had to teach an English class and after we went to Quma to teach the Jose's. They're the dudes with one leg. Jose Vega (the one we carried into church) really likes what we teach, his problem is, is that he forgets literally everything we teach and I'm pretty sure we've taught Joseph Smith like 4 times (as many times someone we know got hit eh?) After we walked SUPER far to teach Jose Luis. He's nice too but he really doesn't believe in our message and we always tell him that someone will come by his house to bring him to church on Sunday, and He's always on board but I'm pretty sure he has a scheduled sickness every Sunday morning and decides not to go. This time I think it was because his remaining foot was leaking blood and puss and he literally sent us a close up picture of it and it looked like mozzarella cheese leaking out of his toe. It was so disgusting.

Saturday we had a baptism in the morning. Her names Lety and she’s super super nice. The thing about the baptism is that cause our ward is so lazy and unhelpful, no one showed up. The baptism was good though. The rest of the day was really slow.

Sunday morning I was really nervous cause I had to confirm Lety in front of the entire ward completely by myself. I kept messing up on my conjugation and stuff and running out of breath as I was doing it. For lunch that day we ate with the bishopric and their families in the church. It was awkward cause I'm pretty sure the bishop hates us. Also every time I reached for the salsa or hot sauce or something my companion would announce that I loved hot sauce and then laugh and pat me on the shoulder. I have no idea why. I wanted to leave so bad. Later that night there was a huge Stake meeting at the church and during it they talked about missionaries and how we all suck and how the church is always messy (which is so stupid literally the church was completely clean cause literally we clean it EVERY Saturday. The bishop was mad over a broken chair in the office that we didn't even break) and how we don't do enough with our recent converts (the recent converts who were baptized long before my time in this area, who we can never contact, and the bishop doesn't take time to know who they are either) and the elders who were at the meeting didn't do us any favors and totally threw us under the bus Saying that the reason the church is messy is completely our fault even though they use the church every day and when they use the kitchen the don't throw their trash away. Then they told the zone leaders too. so its safe to say I was pretty annoyed last night. Also the entire ward was at the meeting so I think they all hate us now (except Norma probably). Anyway thats all from me today, bye!

PS I didn't bring up the Utes game cause it brings me too much pain knowing I wasn't there to see it.

Pics

1 n 2 me trying to get the keys out