He’s named president Holtom by the way

 So I’m back again I suppose after not writing last week. This week was somewhat eventful. 

On Tuesday we went to district council like we usually do on Tuesdays. We went to tepeji which in bus sometimes takes an hour or more to arrive. After district council we had exchanges there in Tepeji. I went with Elder Tippets. He's this tall lanky guy from Sandy. Me and elder Tippetts walked a ton. The appointments all fell except for one with a recent convert, plus the rain started to fall super fast and even though I had an umbrella I got soaked. But what I've noticed is that when your with a good companion, the day doesn’t seem so bad.

On Wednesday we had to go to Tula to the stake center to meet the new mission president. I hadn’t been to Tula since the flooding almost a year ago. We walked through the center of Tula where last September everything had been destroyed basically. Everything now looks completely new and normal and you’d never know that just under a year ago there was devastating flooding that made the place look like a war-zone (although the river in Tula still looks pretty disgusting). We got to the church and we had to wait 40 minutes for the president to arrive. I starting practicing the piano case they asked me to play and I always get nervous playing in front of people. The new president then arrived with his wife and daughter. He’s a super good guy and everyone already seems to like him more then the last mission president. He started to get to know all of us and he doesn’t seem like someone you’d be afraid to talk to about anything. He’s named president Holtom by the way. I think he’s from Virginia or something. The meeting was only like 2 hours and then afterwards we left for the area. There wasn’t many buses that left for Jilotepec (my area) so we waited almost an hour. The bus ride took forever too and oh man buses in Mexico weren’t built for people with long legs cause those things mess up your knees pretty bad. We got back pretty late to the area and we made a baptismal program for the baptism on Saturday. Thats basically all we had time for. 

The rest of the week blends together (I’m currently on a tiny bus to Tula and I don’t have my journal for reference) 

On Saturday though as I mentioned we had a baptism. He was a large, bald man by the name of Jorge. I didn’t know him super well I’d only taught him a few times and he’d been in teaching forever, he just had to get married. The rest of his family are already members. I was somewhat afraid to baptize him because as I mentioned he’s a rather large gentleman. I was able to get him all the down on the second try. The first his hand didn’t go all the way down. I basically just had to shove him in the water like I was drowning him. I just didn’t want to have a repeat of "Norma’s baptism" almost a year ago. On the bus ride back to our area we were sitting down in our seats, a senile old fellow came up to us and started slandering us for being of satan and that were part of of suicide cult and spitting a whole bunch of nonsense and saying we were drinking our own condemnation by being here. I was surprised of how calm I was. I just stared him in the eyes and asked if i could help him with anything and he kept moving (later after the guy got off he started peeing on a tree in front of all the traffic and bus passengers so he wasn’t the most stable man) we walked a lot the rest of the day to visit some people. We met the son of a lady in the branch who looks like he’s from the US. (He’s not though) he’s a nice guy and we taught a long lesson with him. Well see if he’s interested though. His name’s Manuel.

On Sunday we were fasting, and even as a missionary that makes church feel loong. After church we went to go eat with some annoying old people. The lady with white hair was a vegetarian (or is rather) and she was criticizing all of us for everything. She got after a lady there for feeding her 6 year old daughter chicken and she kind of went around the table roasting all of us. Later that evening we went to go contact some people we’d done service for a few weeks ago. They opened the door but were busy so they told us to come back next week. As we were walking away, we passed an old black Volkswagen Beetle with three guys with beer in hand. One of them called us over in english. I walked over to him, not sensing any danger, the guy standing outside the car started talking to me in english. He spoke good english . He said he worked in the US 8 years. I’m not sure he was drunk even though his buddies had their beers (his breath smelled strongly of Doritos not alcohol) we talked a while. He said I was crazy for coming here trying to teach the word of God cause no one here is gonna change, he had a field day when I told him we PAY to come on the mission. He ended up being a nice guy. I gave him and his buddies cards with the articles of faith on them and told them to drink water. The english speaking guy was named Juan Carlos (JC as he told me to call him) he said he was gonna read the card and put it in his car with him wherever he goes. JC was a funny guy. Anyway thats all I’ve got for today 😀

Pics

1. Baptism

2. Sleeping

3. Eating with the annoying old people

I had a few more photos but its not letting me include them for some reason 😞