Hi

This week was not the most exciting in terms of anything, but it wasn't a bad week either I suppose.

Tuesday. District council and all that. The APs were there and when we were talking about our weekly numbers, we totally just threw my old comp under the bus, cause he used to invent numbers, and we didn’t want the APs to go back to president and tell him our numbers are so much worse now that "elder Alvarez is gone" the numbers aren't worse, they're just real. Afterwards we went to go eat at this burrito place. It was extremely fancy and I kid you not, it was the first real restaurant I've been in in Mexico. Almost all of the places to eat are stands or outdoor places where you order at the counter and go sit in weak plastic chairs. This place was all nice and fancy and it was indoors! The burritos were good and then we got the check and for 1 burrito nothing else it was like 125 pesos. It was for sure the most expensive item of food I’ve purchased in 7 months of being a missionary. We later went to teach Elizabeth. I don’t exactly remember what we taught but at the end of the lesson she gave us each a box of cookies and an Apple, so that was nice.

Wednesday was a bit of a slow day. We went to eat with members who live extremely far. I cant believe its February cause the weather has literally felt like June this week. I also destroyed one of my shirts cause when we were eating cause I accidentally spilled like a liter of creamy chipotle salsa on it. After all that pretty much every lesson fell, so we decided to go street contacting. I’ve never been good at it, so I really have to force myself when we go. We went to the large plaza outside of one of the old catholic churches (enemy territory) to contact some people. It ended up being pretty good, and we met some cool people. It turns out one guy gave us a fake number, and one guy said he strongly disagrees with tithing in our church, but it was good overall I suppose.

Thursday we woke up without an ounce of water in the house which obviously isn’t new, but we couldn't shower or anything, so we told the owner of the house and then we had to go to the other missionaries house to shower and get ready. When we got back the owner of the house was there and she had called a water trunk to fill up our big tank outside, but the hose didn’t reach, so we had to fill up large buckets and dump those in the tank a bunch of times. The owner of the house is nice but she was bossing us around so much and I kept getting soaked by all the water we were dumping in, so I really did not feel like talking to anyone. Afterwards we had to rush to the church to let someone in, to reprogram all the computers. He was super cool, he spoke fabulous english and he asked me where I was from (a question I don’t like answering cause people always lose interest when I say Utah). He asked what part and I said "some place called Bluffdale" and he’d actually heard of it, cause it turns out years ago he had a job over in Riverton, which was pretty cool to hear. Later that afternoon, we had a lesson with Elizabeth. It was a really good lesson and she loved that our church explained the story of Adam and eve well, and our church was better at it than any other she'd been to. The best part was when we asked her how she felt about her baptism, every time we’ve EVER asked her that in the past, she’s said "I don’t know" or that its "way too soon" or "I don’t feel ready". All valid answers I suppose, but still not the answer you want to hear. This time though she said she was excited and felt ready. Her answer threw me off guard pretty good cause I wasn’t expecting her to sound so animated about it. I suppose we’ve got a baptism this Saturday then.

On Friday, we walked super far to go eat with a family in a part of the area I’d never been to before. Right outside their house, theres this large busted aviary thing that used to be an "ecologic Park" or something. I’ll include a picture cause I don’t really know how to describe it. Afterwards we were walking back and the heat was just killing us so we stopped to buy a popsicle (well I bought a popsicle, my companion accidentally bought some Coffee ice cream). I’m just so surprised at how hot this area is. Later we got a message from a number we didn’t recognize asking for a blessing on a new house. So we went not really knowing what to expect. It ended up being two old(ish) sisters and their family. We gave the new house a blessing and then they invited us in to chat for a sec. They literally gave us so much food. They first gave us chips (big mix jalapeño to be exact) and then some Coke, then they ordered some huge tortas and then later some quesadillas and then two large tubs of yogurt and the rest of the tortas that they didn’t want. I literally think I gained 10 pounds at that house. The family was funny though, they were members, but COMPLETELY inactive. They hadn’t been to church in years, and one of the ladies admitted that she drank and all that. They didn’t even have a Book of Mormon. We were running late to a lesson, but they insisted we just do it there cause it was for video call cause we weren’t gonna arrive on time to the church or the house or wherever. It was kind of awkward cause we were just teaching this guy Moisés while they were sitting in the room. At one point one of the ladies fell asleep and started snoring. It was a good lesson with Moises, just a little uncomfortable. Before we left, the house, they asked us one more question. They said that whenever they had body pain or whatever, they’d go to this crazy lady Who claimed she could heal them by doing weird rituals and calling upon angels and stuff. According to them, the therapy works and they don’t feel pain afterwards, but they wanted to know if it was Ok to jeep visiting this hag or whatever she was. We took at as a great opportunity to teach about the priesthood and stuff. We also told them to be extremely careful with that stuff, cause its got satan’s influence written all over it. They were a good family though. And man the food nearly popped a hole in my stomach.

On Saturday, a member called us and asked for help moving some furniture. He lived by the weird ecologic Park thing thats kind of hard to describe. We made the long, trek over there. The guy is really nice, but extremely nervous I think. He wanted us to help him move a very large dresser they had, in front of his back door and Windows to keep burglars out. I understand wanting to protect your house, but not putting a large closet the size of a wall in front of your entryways. Later he wanted to move some huge fallen down cactus's he had laying in his side yard so he could plant them in an ares to keep people out. Cactus's are dang heavy man. Right after that we had to go walk to the members house to eat. From where we were it was about a 1 hour walk or so and I think by the time we arrived, we had been walking for 1 and a half. I guess it wasn’t too long, but I’d be lying if i said we weren’t a little dead after all that. After all that we returned to the church and made si d contactos. I think we had a lesson or two on the Phone but I really am not too sure.

Sunday. Church obviously. For the second week in a row, only 1 person showed up that we were teaching or inactive or whatever (Elizabeth was our only one). I’ve noticed that its a lot easier to say your going to church than it is to just show up on Sunday. We had our ward correlation after and it was the best one I’ve ever had cause the members are willing to help us. Later we ate with the Stake President and his family, and later went to teach Elizabeth with 2 of the ward missionaries. We didn’t really have any plan for the lesson or direction at all, so the lesson was a little awkward, but honestly I’ve learned on my mission, it’s absolutely impossible to a avoid awkward moments. We basically told her what she needed to bring to her baptism and then taught "obey and honer the law" cause thats the only principle she didn’t have. After that we went back to the church to report our weekly numbers and then made some contacts. We got a message from Moisés saying he needed 100 pesos. I feel weird giving away money as a missionary and I'm not sure were even technically allowed to do it, but we decided to anyway, cause it was someone were teaching.

Anyway, I apologize you had to sit through such a dull one. I was even bored writing it.

Pics

Us, Jesus, and the virgin

The weird, busted, ecologic park thing