Detective - "Do we know if the victim is a man or
a woman?"
Cluso - "Well, of course we know that, what else
is there, Kittens?"
Torreon things-
They sell watermellons and cantalope here in
the back of trucks. Watermellons for less than a dollar and 3 cantalopes for a
dollar. Nothing like a perfectly chilled watermellon and a spoon at
7 in the morning. Dad a
question for you- is it bad to eat watermellon seeds?
There
is an elder that is identical to jim halpert from the office. The mexi
sioni, well at least his hair. (i have a picture with him, but my camera
is in the house. soorry. ha i dont take it with me in my backpack
cause i don't want to be robbed.
I tried gum this week. Char sent me
some, and we can't chew it on the streets; but i thought it would be rude to not
try a piece. Not bad. Ha Cate will love that.
One day our house smelled like gram and
gramps old dog Kisa. Or at least his/her breath.
We have been painting
for our service quite a bit; three times in the last several weeks. In
return we get food. =) a very nice trade . There is really
a lot of food in this area. It is not uncommon to be given 2 or three
meals in addition to the one large lunch that is provided by the
members. Many times those additional meals consist of ice
cream. There were 3 birthdays in homes where we visited and shared a message.
This morning that family gave us a big breakfast.
Resistance to the offers is futile, and mostly our resistance is
feeble. They really are so giving here. I just wish I could
say the same about the waist band on the pants. Ha, but no
worries, when i get sent to the ranches i will need the reserves.
They had elections here but it doesn't
matter who won because everybody here has accepted the fact that the power really is in the
hands of Justin Beiber; at least over all teenage girls
and an occasional boy. Really though. In Roma one girl wouldn't
come listen to a lesson because she had to listen to his
album. And in this area we walked into a battleground as
we visited a family. The mom had spent much needed money to
attend an upcoming concert with her daughter. Those tickets are not
cheap. The daughter wouldn't come out of the
room and we found out it was because the seats werent close
enough. We really do have it so rough being teenagers.
I had exchanges this week with an Elder Nunez. He was
in the MTC with Meg and is from the D.R. He has 15 siblings! He is
new and excited about learning english so we had a really good time practicing
throughout the day. Every single one of our lessons fell through that day;
which never happens in that area. I don't get discouraged by this as
I remember hearing that an Elder in Ireland taught 1 lesson in
his first year. rough. But while I was with Elder Nunes we were
knocking on a door when we heard, "no esta." We looked
over and saw a man pocking his head out of the neighbor apartment. We
went over and talked to this man and it turns out that he lived in
Idaho for six years. He had talked to the missionaries
and wanted to know more, but had to come back here and didnt know how
to find out more. He was quite interested. Elder Nunez told me that he went to church yesturday. Quite a
diamond in the rough of failed plans.
We are now settled in the area and had
some real progress this week. It changes your whole day when
you feel the spirit during a lesson. It is like an old friend or family
member coming and putting their arm on your shoulders. In that moment
you stop worrying if the lesson is going in the right direction and
you just talk comfortably about the truths that you love. We can't force the
same spririt on the investigator, but it always seems that when I begin to feel
it they seem to relax and drop their defenses. There is one
lesson in particular that stands out. While we were in Roma, Elder Poblete and I had
contacted the Rodrigues family on one of our outings to the University area.
The parents were Jesus and Maria Magdalyn (those are really their names). They were
instantly interested and baptised within the month. This week we went by
to try to teach their sons who previously didn't want to
participate. They accepted the appointment and last night on a second lesson
we had a family night with them. Jesus had recieved the priesthood during
church and officiated the noche hogar like a pro. They had a lot of
questions specifically aimed at the Book of Mormon, so we read the first
chapter and intro with them. The boys were excited and accepted our challenge to read
the book as well as prepare for baptism.
For dinner after the lesson we had Molle. For Molle
they take stringed pork and add a chocolate sauce. =). Well done Mexico.
Well done; making greasy deliciousness more greasy and
delicious. We had already had hamburgers and fries for lunch.
They always make fun of Americans here for eating pizza, hot
dogs, grilled chicken, and hamburgers for every meal. Ha
hmmm. During lunch with the bishop and his family, his brother-in-law started playing a
tune. He asked me if I knew it. I had to admit that I didn't know the tune. It was the Mexican National Anthem. They were shocked and asked if I didn't remember it from the
Olympics? I said "hmm...nope.. it seems that all I seem to hear
during those ceremonies is the star spangled banner." and started to
hum it with hand over heart. ha They all laughed.
