1000s of Horses

The first week of a five weeks transfer is over. It wasn't too bad, I guess. My new companion is names Elder McClellan. He's from Draper. He's the first American comp I've had since the MTC. On Tuesday, we went to district council. There's a new missionary in the district named Elder Sayavedra. His dad apparently lived in Mexico city for the first 20+ years of his life, but the new Elder speaks no Spanish at all. I felt bad for him cause that day he looked pretty dang lost. That day we knocked a door I remember knocking my first week in this area, cause apparently an investigator lived there. We went back this week and as we approached the house, the lady and her husband who lived there walked outside. I guess her husband is a member, and they let us in to teach a message. They're named Vanessa and Jose. Afterwards we taught an old lady and her daughter who have been in teaching for a while and don't seem to progress, but they're nice to us at least..after we went to see Carlos and Diana and talked about baptism.

Wednesday we went to go help Alejandro, a guy who works in a restaurant and always gives us free food. He needed help moving his furniture from a bottom apartment, to a top one. It didn't take too long, but the house he was moving out of smelled strongly of Marijuana, and that's a smell I've grown to absolutely despise. You could literally almost feel the thickness of the air inside the house. The upstairs apartment, luckily did not smell yet of said substance, so it was a lot fresher. After Alejandro took us to his restaurant and gave us some food. Later we had a video call with our recent converts, the two kids who got baptized a few weeks back, and we went outside to go talk to some people. There's this funny Arabic guy who sells coffee down the street who we talk to sometimes. He invited us in and we talked with him, and his buddy named Salvador for a while. The coffee guy is named Shadi and is from the middle east. He gave us some hot chocolate and we talked for a while. He's said he'll come to church a bunch of times but he never comes, but he's a funny guy. Later that night we walked a bit to go see a guy named Antonio. (There's a lot of people with that name, aren't there?)

On Thursday we started the day out with the most boring mission wide zoom meeting known to man. Literally. It was an hour (or more) about how to answer Facebook messages that arrive to the mission page. That's basically what I understand anyway. I honestly zoned out pretty good. So guys, don't answer fbook messages rudely and be courteous in the answers you send. That's basically what they took an hour to tell us. Later that day we visited Moroni, Vanessa, her grandma, and two other recent converts named Paloma and Elena. We’re working with Vanessa, man, but she doesn’t retain information at all and its a bit mind-boggling to see. We also found a little frog. We ate a ton that day. Literally we ate 4 times. (Just as much as someone we know got hit with fireworks)

Friday we went to Tepeji for exchanges. I went with Elder Sayavedra, the new guy. The day honestly was not planned too well so I was basically wandering around in an area I didn't know super well, with a brand new missionary. We called some people and went around looking for Grey dots (former people in teaching) knocked a couple doors and contacted a few in the street. The map ended up leading us to some lady who was recently in teaching. I honestly wasn’t expecting her to let us in at all, but she did and I had to come up with a lesson on the spot and it was kind of awkward. I got the new Elder to read a scripture and share his testimony.

Saturday morning we went to a photography shop by the elders house in Tepeji. They know the missionaries pretty well and they bought me a cake for my birthday which was really cool. Later that day there was an activity in the branch building. We went so my comp could meet the members. It was like a 'Mexican night' celebrating Mexico independence day. There was a lot of youth dancing. I really don't understand dancing at all. The members surprised me by singing to me for my birthday. I had to stand up in front of everyone. It was cool though. Afterwards everyone started hugging me and congratulating me. I got a few gifts too. Some cologne, deodorant, and a coat. Birthdays seem to be a much bigger deal in Mexico. It was really cool though and really nice of the members to do that. Afterwards we ate Pozole. We had realized also that we'd lost our keys to the house and so we had to ask the owner of the building to let us in the apartment, and then shove my comp through a tiny window.

On Sunday we had church and all that. We found our keys as well. We were walking back to the house and we stopped to talk to some people who work in a pharmacy down the street from us. The told us to wait cause to I guess celebrate the independence day this week a bunch of people were gonna ride through on horses. And oh boy they were right. There were literally hundreds of horses. The guy estimated that there’d be over 1000 and I believe him. Literally I've never seen so many horses in my life. It was like a parade. The funny thing is that almost everyone riding the horses was drinking beer and some of them were pretty rowdy. A few times they started yelling stuff to us gringos on the side of the road. It was fine though. Nothing we haven't heard a billion times before. Later that night we went to go visit some people. We walked kinda far. We went to go see a contact me and my last comp had made. Her name is Juana. A super nice lady, but oh my goodness it was probably the longest door conversation I'd ever had. We were standing there at her front gate and she was just talking. I tried to focus on what she was saying, she was talking about her eye problems, her kids, her husband, literally EVERYTHING. I completely understand that I needed to listen to her and be nice cause it's a small town and the people out here are lonely and it was nice to see someone who was really open to us, but man I was starting to zone out a bit. She was talking so long it was starting to get comical. She was really nice though and she gave us her phone number and we'll go back. We had to walk home after cause it was late and we didn't have time for anything else. Anyway. That's the uninspired Elder Rivera writing to you from a couch in Jilotepec, Mexico. Bye!!

Pics.

Birthday shenanigans