Greetings from Babylon

Hello, so first Im sorry. If you were on my email list before, with a new phone and area, the contacts and emails I had got all lost and so you might just be reading this bad boy on Facebook.

Anyway, why the title? It's cause this new area, Pradera is pretty nuts. It's very south in the mission, and about as close as you can get to the city. As we were driving through the first time, I realized it's all concrete and buildings as far as the eye can see. There's a ton of really sketchy apartment buildings made out of red brick. Like I said though, this areas a bit gnarly. It's marked as a "red zone" in the mission, which means it's one of the more dangerous areas. There's literally whole apartment blocks or complexes that are run by drug lords and no one can enter. there's literally one of them right across from our house. The police don't even go in. A lot of people walking around with tattoos all over their face or people you just shouldn't to go near. The biggest part of the area (it's not a huge area) is a place  called San Rafael, and it's just red brick apartments that stretch on for miles. Its really hard to find where people live, and that's where the famous apartment block is that's run by a drug boss and you can only enter with a time limit and without a phone and all that. We walked past it one night and it's pretty sketchy and the "guards" they have stationed there are always hidden. The good thing about the area is the food is sooo good. The tacos and the tortas and all of that are literally super delicious. Also my comps named Elder Sanchez. He's from Veracruz, he's cool. Anyways. 

Tuesday I woke up so tired cause our house is so hot and some baby in some house close by was screaming all night. That day we visited a lot of people, mostly inactive members trying to get them to come back to church, we ate with a grandma named Paty who was extremely nice. Her husband was sick so we gave him a blessing. Later we visited a house of some other inactive and the grandparents were there. Super super nice people, but SUPER catholic, so we talked a while and left. At night we went to a family home evening in San Rafael, and of course it took like 5 hours to find the apartment. We had a good message and the gave us some references. After the gave us some pan dulce which has always been one of my favorite things about Mexico.

On Wednesday morning, we went to go visit an inactive member really close to the house. We didn't know who she was, but we just went. It ended up being a very sick old grandma named Velman. She's was so kind to us and so grateful we came to visit her and asked for a blessing to her and her house. She's pretty sick so she can't really move too well and thats why she can't go to church. She was so happy for our visit that she started crying a ton. After that we ate with Paty again and she made us super good mole from Veracruz. She's extremely kind too. I realize this area is a bit 'Sodom and Gomorrah' like, but there's some extremely good people here too. Later we visited an inactive close by (we do a lot of that) and she said she didn't have time, but there was another inactive nearby who she told us to visit. It took us sooo long to find this house and we were about to give up, when we finally found her house. We went and knocked the door just for her to send us away because apparently she's always busy and will never have time for us. So that was great. Later, we went to the church and I was able to meet the bishopric who told us to go visit some inactive member in San Rafael. Then we went to the computer to see if we could answer some messages from Facebook, but literally the computer in the church is so slow it’s almost impossible to do. The thing I heard was that the reason it's so slow is cause some missionary here in the past, broke it from playing so many video games on it. Later we went to go visit a family and *sigh* the mom isn't a member even though she goes to church EVERY SINGLE WEEK with her kids, because her husband, who's a member and returned missionary, isn't divorced with his first wife, but they still live together and have three kids. A very nice family, but yeah. We taught the 10 commandments and put some emphasis on the adultery part. I feel bad for the wife cause she is literally living the life of an active member but since her husband's not divorced...it brought a scripture to mind in D&C 82 that says: 

3 For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.

Anyways

I'm realizing as I read this back I combined some events from Wednesday and thursday. On Wednesday it was, we went looking for a less active that the bishop sent us to look for, we took a few hours to look for her in San Rafael, but there’s too many apartments there and we couldn't find it so we visited a recent convert close by. We left quickly cause it was getting late and no one wants to be in the streets of the area late at night. Literally I've seen multiple people who walk around with 2 by 4s or literally machetes to protect themselves. I should start doing that. 

On Friday we went out to look for an investigator in their house, they weren't there so we took to the streets to go contact. It's never been my favorite or most effective way to contact but we met a few interesting folk I suppose. Later we taught a recent convert (well, two, they live together and aren't married) they were really nice. We also reviewed the 10 commandments with them. After we looked for the bishops reference again and couldn't find her and we walked to the very limits of the area and had to turn around in defeat. 

Saturday morning, we went to a juice stand to contact a member reference. she doesn't seem extremely interested, she's an old woman with a bunch of crosses and images of the virgin in her juice stand, but we had some fabulous fresh squeezed orange juice for her at least. in the evening we had a sports activity with our ward and the other ward who shares church building. Eldera Weidner and Soria from the other ward were there and their super fun dudes. I was able to meet a lot of members and stuff and we played basketball and soccer for a while with all of them. 

Yesterday was church. Our meeting doesn't start till 12, so in the morning we went to visit a lady who needed a blessing and we went back to the juice stand to invite the lady to church. She kind of ignored us but it's fine. Later we had ward council which was a bit of a joke, the bishop was only half paying attention and he cut our time short. After we waited for our ward to start and we were getting to know a lot of members in our ward and In the other ward. There was one nice large old guy who wants to take us to some pyramids close by but they're outside of the dang mission. Our friends Enrique and Miriam came. Their super cool and close to baptism. Also our mission president came to our meeting which defiantly didn't thrill me, but it was fine. Afterwards a very enthusiastic man named Miguel Vega (or Maestro Vega as he said we could call him) came up with our investigator Enrique and started telling him all about temple and family history work and baptisms for the dead. I could tell Enrique was soo confused so after I made sure to clarify that baptisms for the dead were not us baptizing a literal corpse cause I'm pretty sure he thought that's what they were. After church President and Sister Severson took us to our house to drop off a bookcase cause we don't have one. It was a short ride and nothing bad happened, but nothing is more nerve racking than riding in a car with your Mission President and his wife. Later we went to go eat chilaquiles with a family, and those have become some of my favorite foods in Mexico. We finished the day visiting some inactive with one of the councilors in the bishopric. Out of all the wards I've been in on the mission, none of them seem to have ministers or ministering families. Anyways bye. 

Pics

1: Us at transfers with the old district. I miss those guys, from right to left it would be, Elder González my old comp, me, Elder Cerventes, and elder Larson, on the end is elder Juárez for some reason. 

2: Me and Eder Wiedner on a see-saw 

3: Me, my comp (there in the background) Elder Soria and Elder Weidner 

I was trying to find the one of just me and my comp, but I couldn't