Flying Doritos

We were contacting a house this week trying to find someone. I was explaining the plot of Star Wars to my comp in Spanish because he has never seen it. I believe I was at the point of trying to explain the Death Star to him when out of nowhere we heard the sound of loud wind and looked in the street to see a huge whirlwind coming right at us. We hadn't seen it until it was too late so we just made like armadillos and threw our arms over our head and crouched to make a ball. It passed right over us and we were slapped by the garbage that they always carry and nearby objects that fell on us including a big tarp.  It passed and we were both falling over laughing about how quickly it had happened. I still have sand in my ears. It was as if the weather knew that I had just been talking about tatooine and it wanted to show my comp what it is like there.  I guess it goes to show that I am such a good story teller that even nature is in tuned and wants to play a part. But I guess I don’t remember Luke ever getting hit in the face by a flying sand covered Doritos bag. 

En este mes estábamos buscando un hombre y pedimos a un paraje sentado afuera su casa si conocían al hombre. Ellos no sabían quien era pero aprovechamos la oportunidad de hablarles y les contactamos. Ellos se veían estresados pero nos escuchamos y tenían mucho interés. Tuvimos una plática muy buena y lo próximo día y el domingo después llegaron a la capilla con sus dos hijas todos vestidos bien en ropa formal. Nuestra área es pequeña así ellos ya habían conocido a muchas personas antes de ir a la capilla y sintieron muy cómodos allá. En la semana después durante una platica ellos nos preguntaron como podían conseguir una biblia semejante a la nuestra porque pensaban que las nuestras son lindas y la suya es guadalupano y enorme. El hermano que llevamos con nosotros ya es un buen amigo con el padre de la familia y el respondió a su pregunta con mucho caridad y regalo la biblia que había traído a la platica a ellos.  Ellos están progresando mucho nos contaron que el día que les contactamos ellos habían estado luchando y realmente creen que Dios se nos envió a ellos.    

Sorry no pics this week. The computer gave my card a virus which I now need to clean.

That is terrible about Cate getting robbed and the car. We will beat them in the next life. 

I have to go. Love you!

Speen

Gas Tank

I told you about a man a bit ago. He was the guy had a part of his intestine hanging out. We have taught him several times now and he is a really humble man. This week while talking with him we asked him a question and while he sat there thinking about it, we heard a voice from inside the house answer the question. Ha, we said, "woa, hey you can come out and talk with us." The mystery woman said she was too embarrassed. She had a lot of interest so we just went with it and taught the whole lesson to her without seeing her face. We even left a Book of Mormon. 

hahah that is a gas tank.  There are several gas companies here in Mexico. There are two types of gas tanks: 1) stationary and 2) the one that you see.  With both types you can call the gas company (which always have trucks with large tanks in the back) going around the neighborhoods. They play the company's theme song and they will either fill your stationary tanks or replace your removable one. But this costs a little more money and a lot of people here don't have addresses so their houses are hard to find. So they take their tank to the local gas fill up stations. They are super creative in getting them moved around.

It is interesting how many people believe in predestination. I have heard a lot here that "everything happens for a reason," which is true in the sense that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It just seems crazy to me that everything happens for a divine reason. What would even be the point of coming here if it was all worked out before hand. It would be a puppet show. Some people talk about how two weeks before they were skate boarding and fell and broke their leg. Then they say "I don't know why God did this to me but I am sure it is for my benefit".  Hmm or you maybe just shouldn't try a 360 near fire hydrants. 

We had an activity this morning with our zone. We played volleyball, which had to be one of the funnest hour's of my mission. It was the first time playing in 14 months. Then we put blankets on the net and started playing human battle ship with water balloons. everyone would sit down on one side of the net and people would take turns trying to hit people on the other side with a tag teemed towel toss but that lasted about two minutes and then somehow it erupted into an all out water fight. The sister missionaries went the craziest. They knocked a few elders over with their softball throws. 

I don't know if i told you but I was walking a bit back and a nail snagged my pants and ripped them all the way down the shin.  ha oops. I had them sewed 3-4 times. They might be only forty percent of the same material I brought here but, when i finish my mission, they will finish with me! =)  Actually, I also bought some other pants last week, so I am set.  

Love you guys. Give Cate my congrats!

The house down a few streets, with the dog that is always in front of it

Last week we found a man walking with a severe limp and he looked in pain. We went up and talked to him and asked if we could pass by his house. He agreed but he didn't know his address but gave us a description. Well, the next day we couldn't find the house "with the tree, down a few streets, with the dog that is always in front of it."  =) On the way to a different lesson this week we found him in the street walking. We told him we had looked but couldn't find his house. We asked him if he wanted to join us in the lesson that we were going to.  He did. In route, we were talking to him and he said that he just had an operation. He lifted his shirt and there was a medical bag that had part of his intestines inside and it was dripping fluid. ahh gross. Apparently he had a hernia and he still need to get closed up. Well, we had a great lesson with him and at the end we asked him if he would offer the prayer. He accepted and shortly after starting praying he broke down crying. He was pleading with God for help. He told us he felt something different with us. 

In the spirit world or during the millennium, how do you think we will grow?

I need to run – have a good week.

Speen

Serrano Peppers

Highlights of the week:

1.      Saw a scorpion 

2.      Saw a mother scorpion as they call it here - which really isn’t a scorpion; it is a spider, but a very dangerous nasty looking one;

3.      We had a lesson with an ex-convict, drug lord guy. It went great!

4.      Woke up; left the house; worked all day; got dusty; cleaned house and shoes; went to sleep. Repeated process.

Conference is always fun on the mish. We also had a good number of investigators there with us - so that was great. I included a picture of one of them. We had a lesson after conference with her and we asked her if she had prayed about baptism. She told us she was ready for it!

There is a tradition to burn a shirt at your one year mark - so we colored one up that was already ruined from my second area after a service project and we made like a couple of Boy Scouts behind our house.

Question: When we went on that hike with Brady, Josh, Dan, Christian, Doug, and Henry out by angels landing how high do you think was that longest drop?  Do you remember when we accidentally got off the trail and ended up by the ridge?

Both of your counselors sent me letters last week. That was super nice - so you’ll have to thank them for me.

The computers here are super slow. It took me an hour just to look through email and photos sent from home; 1st world problems here in Gomez Pa“rancho.”

Whenever we don’t want food or when something goes bad, we give it to a dog we have named Mozart. He always sits outside our house.  I am pretty sure the missionaries have been feeding him for a long time because even though he doesn’t know us, he is super faithful to us. When we leave the house in the mornings, he will always appear from another part of the neighborhood and trot over to greet us. One night we had a stack of ham that had gone bad and my comp had bread that he didn’t want – so we tossed it out of our window. He caught it in his mouth. He gets so excited because he is so hungry. Whenever we feed him he runs over to greet us and pounces on us to see if we have more food. He often sits outside our door, occasionally pawing the door to tell us to come out. One night after the ham, I went up on the roof and dropped one more piece of ham. It fell beside his head to his great surprise. He quickly gobbled it up and then looked at the window to see where the mystery meat came from. He was confused and looked up and saw me. He got so excited – he stood up on two legs trying to reach me to get more ham. We have fed him corn, a Gordita, an orange (didn’t eat it), and straight sugar (he was surprised by the taste and then ate several cups of the sugar).

You asked me if I bought new shoes. Nope you bought me those when we bought the slip-ons. I still have both pair.

We asked one of our native comps who the Mexican president was. He laughed and then thought for a second and told us he didn’t know.  We laughed and asked the hermana who was preparing us food if she knew. Nope. But they definitely know all of the Hollywood stars.

The video I put in the dropbox is a challenge between me and a member. At first we ate some chilies that were disappointingly not spicy so it didnt work. Then he ran into the kitchen and grabbed two Serrano’s.  =)

I really enjoy spicy food now and I have definitely grown accustomed to them. In July I took a tiny bite of that same pepper and had to run it the bathroom to spit it out and wash my mouth. Now I am speéñ

Wikipedia: The Scoville rating of the serrano pepper is 10,000 to 25,000.^[3] They are typically eaten raw and have a bright and biting flavor that is notably hotter than the jalapeño pepper.

There is a standing bet for any elder that can eat three peppers. My comp was dying after one but he is new and sweats every meal because "it burns.” I can down three habaneras’.

Daylight Savings Time

Our investigators’ told us that Saturday night was the switch for day light savings. I have on my calendar when it happens in the United States.  But, in Mexico it always changes several weeks later and we had no way of knowing - so we trusted them. On Sunday morning we went to the home of one of our investigators.  Her name is Mari.  She is 66 years old and has a very southern U.S. flare to her. We were going to arrange a ride for her but she wanted to walk so we went to her house and she wasn’t ready, which was odd, but we didn’t think anything of it.  She changed and then grabbed her fancy umbrella and off we went on the dirt streets to the church.  As we walked, my comp called the other elders in our ward because we were going to be late and we needed them to look out for out another investigator that was going to church. The other elders were surprised and asked why so early? We asked where they were and they said in their house. My comp laughed and told them about daylight savings.  We heard them scrambling to get ready.  Well, we made it to church and surprise. . . .  no one was there. Wha?!  Apparently, the time change was a week later, so we were half an hour early to church. Ha, but this was great because I got to sit next to Mari before other people arrived and explain the Santa Cena.  I got Mari to sit next to a wonderful woman in our ward and they were fast friends.  Also, I was pretty excited because there have been very few times in the mish were I have had more than one or two investigators at a time in the church.  We ended up having 5 adults and 4 children.