If I Marry a Girl from Here

 

Washing Clothes

 

Family

It is sad to hear that 15 years of elementary Halloween parades now come to an end.

Today is San Judas day. All of the kids are firing of these bomb-like fireworks. hahah we are teaching a war vet he says he wakes up to the explosions and he feels like he is back in the war and within 5 seconds he is under his bed with his knife.  

If I marry a girl from here she would know how to handle a gun and ride a horse. A couple of years back there was a woman here that walked around town with double holsters and was not afraid to kill. She was faster than all the men on the draw so no one dared to stand against her.   Fun fact: The movie "the wild bunch" was filmed here in Parras. The Texas man wanted me to get him a copy of the movie.  

My incredible parents; thanks a bazillion for the box!

 

I loved the articles you sent in the box. I loved the paragraph in the one where he rejects the concept of a God that puts billions of us in a world where a huge majority endure mainly pain and sorrow.... punishing those who don’t believe in him (a majority of which have never even heard of him) all without shedding a tear. When I read that paragraph, I thought of Neal Maxwell’s quote: "there goes another beautiful theory, murdered by a gang of facts."     

 

Yes, so we didn’t have cambios.  My comp is still in his training so it will be probably in 4 weeks. This time in Parras has been definitely my favorite part of the mission. My comp is a stud. I’m super close with the D.L. Carson was in my zone so I have seen him a bunch and parras is incredibly pretty. Also, I now understand how to speak and do this work so that helps a  bit =) ha.   

 

We have been teaching a woman (and her grandson) that reminds me of Nanny McPhee. We helped her paint her adress. She still has some fire in her and she is pretty deadly with her cane.
 

I sent you a picture of me with one of my favorite people here.  

 

 

 

So, I learned this week that for manual labor they make about a dollar an hour.   when my comp heard the usual pay of high school kids in the States, he was pretty shocked.

Wills letter was so great.

 

Chesire Cat:

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

 

Pretty good advice for some afternoons here  =) ha 

 

 

P-day Hike

We had an excellent week this week. Last week I reported to you was one of the longer weeks of my mission. Not that it was bad, it just went really slow. My comp said the same thing I did. But this week went incredibly quick and well.  

We have interviews tomorrow and then transfers on Thursday; so I’m crossing my fingers that the next guy is solid.  My comp right now is a stud. I would be very pleased if he was left with me. 

So Meish will be home for the holidays?  That is fantastic.  

Mom said she had a conversation with the mother of a girl headed to Meisha’s mission about hygiene and other stuff. If anyone asks about hygiene for Elders coming to Torreon, here is the list: WEAR DEODARANT - yep that is about it.

 

Last week - to finish off our Preparation day we went up and climbed to that church. It was incredibly beautiful and what a view. I kept thinking that it would be a perfect spot for a temple. Ha like in Emperers grove when he slams his giant palace on top the tiny house at the summit of the replica hill, shooting confetti and shouting"Cusco Topia, Yeahh me!" We will do the same.  

 

After hiking to the top of that hill last week, we looked out and saw the beautiful mountains that were just calling us to hike them. We had planned on hiking there in the past, but every Monday it had rained heavy or we were in a different city. But this morning we woke up early and headed out.  The mountains were in camel back formation - one small one, then a small valley, then a bigger one, valley, followed by a mount Olympus sized mountain.  We bush wacked our way through the desert brush until we found a small trail.  We couldn’t attempt the hills until the sun was up because of the rocks so we went up to see the sunrise from the monastery.  

 

While we waited for the sun to rise we took a ton of photos and had a killer time.  My comp was tempted to ring the bell.  =)  You can see the rope to the bell just above my head.   haha that would go over well.   

Good story from this week: We were walking and I heard someone say: “Hey, you’re a Gringo. You speak English? I am used to cat-calls in English and lots of swear words (why is it that the only words teenagers know in other languages are the crude ones). Well this man was from Texas. I had a good talk with him. He was a mechanic and opted to go to Iraq for a year about 7 years ago. He was in a convoy that had a fifty percent chance of making it. They were attacked and an engine fell on him. He has 3 herniated disks and should be in a wheel chair, but lives here because the climate eases the pain. We spent some time with his family and he showed us a lot of pics from Iraq. Yikes. But it was way fun to talk him and his wife.           

Meg and Meish sound excellent. I got to head out.

Speen

 

 

 

 

 

Cheetos

Hey, so I really don’t have much to report from this week. We walked and then kept walking and then the week ended =).    An elder has a pedometer and we measured how far we walk on average. Our area is bigger so we average around 12 miles per day but we have hit a 15er. We knocked on one house and nobody answered. Turning to leave we ran into a boy that was heading into the house.  We asked if his father was home. He said yes and went in to tell him that someone was at the door. He came back and innocently said "my dad says that he isn’t home."    Ha - we walked away and then I looked back after fifteen steps to see the dad take off out the front door. Do they think we are the police?    

We actually have some solid families that we are working with. "You can tell a man not by his answers, but by his questions." I love the questions that real investigators give us:“I being born as a Mormon, raised by Mormon’s, growing up with Mormons; I just have a different perspective on life than many.” Try as I might to guess what questions I will receive, there are some that blow me away and completely change the way I look at certain aspects of the gospel.

 

There hasn’t been a baptism here for a year, so we are trying to work on that. We are working with a couple and are trying to help them get married. She has been coming to church for 2 years but we need to help them get through the marriage process. She doesn’t really understand what the lawyers are telling them. The lawyers are in a different town and it costs 15 dollars to go there (which they don’t have). We have finally gotten the members involved so hopefully this month we will see it happen.  There is some really good leadership here - Some very solid folks.     

I am just about to finish Jesus the Christ by Talmage.  He provides an angle to the Gospels that completely unmasks the Jewish culture at the time of Christ. Chapter 40 is a pretty solid grilling on the apostasy. The wording in many of the teachings and experiences he relates is unclear to me and had me confounded. But much of it brings great clarity.

 

Also, I have downloaded and am listening to The Joseph Smith papers which is a TV series from the Mormon Channel. It is a group of historians that dig through the life, times and details of the Prophet. It is pretty comprehensive and sucks you in. 

And that would be the life of your kid. We eat, we sleep, we walk, we gospel it up at every possible opportunity, and then the alarm clock rings =).  

The Chemistry student we baptized in my last area is solid. =)  best find ever.              

I received a letter from the Daniels. Tell them thanks for that. 

Also, thanks to your parents for their letters. I owe them a long one next week.

I have to head but thanks for writing me.  I get pretty excited for Monday mornings

 

 

General Conference, Short Ceilings, and Paper Mache

One of the many things I loved about General Conference

A Hermana in our Ward sent a very concerned message to us that we should be attending conference and that we were completely letting her down. We had gone to watch conference with all the elders in our zone. Conference was incredible. All the Americans piled in an office together to watch it in English, mainly to hear the actual voices. This was completely worth it just to listen to Elder Dube. The other elders said that the Spanish interpreter had a really high voice. We slept over with the zone leaders one night and the district leaders the other night.  

The buildings here are built for smaller people. I have a bit of scaring on my head now.

I won't tell you what this is

 

 These are made out of paper. Incredibly impressive.  They use glue and slices of cardstock

 

We experimented cleaning the bathroom with Coke. We heard that it works and we don’t like Coke. It actually did work. . . . some.

Mom said the next Hobbit is coming out. Oh John Thorton - why aren’t you real?    

 

I gotta go but I will give you a good update on our area next week. So good to see the photos you put on dropbox. I kind of forget about the outside world here.

Also have your listened to "the Joseph Smith papers" podcast? Very good!

Speen

 

 

The Snake

Aw - I was just dreading with some excitement to see pics of Powell.  Unjust =)

This week we had meetings Sunday until Wednesday so our working week was only Thursday onward.  One of the days we were walking and I saw a man twenty meters in front of us on the other side of the road walking in our direction. He looked me in the eyes, picked up a big rock and started to cross the street, coming directly at us.  I gave him a look like pal what are you doing? He kept my eye-line as he drew nearer. We got close to him and I asked him what he was doing, with some defensiveness in my voice.  He was slightly taken back by my tone and said that there was a snake right in front of us.  We looked down and yup, right in front of us there was a meter and a half long snake.  Yikes! But at least we were not being attacked by a crazy man. He chucked the rock at the snake and completely missed it.  We watched it for a little bit and a small crowd formed. I picked a rock as big as my torso and landed it on the snake. It started to go crazy, but it wasn’t going anywhere, and it didn’t go as crazy as my companion.  The guy reacted instantly, once he saw that the snake couldn’t move he went completely Chuck Norris.  He took a leaping ninja jump and landed on the snake head and stomped the head to oblivion. Ha turned around sweating and calmly walked away saying " I really don’t like snakes." Then the best part was a woman and her husband who showed up after all the action, moved the Boulder, put the snake in a bag, put the bag in a cargo space on their moped and just rode away, not really saying anything.  haha what?!  Turns out snake is a delicacy here. I think they will all just remember my comp. This week we dealt with the norm of religious traditionalism. I have met a ton of good people that are so good and say their prayers and are so charitable. But, they lack so much of the light and truth.  I was talking to one woman and asked if she feels encouraged to attend her church services, and how often she goes. She told me that she only goes every several years, usually for a baptism of friend or family, and that actually when she goes everybody thinks that something is wrong. Haha what irony? When she goes to church people think that there is a problem. Many never really open their scriptures - they just cross them self as they walk past their statues. Many of those people live good lives. We had lunch with a Hermana and she talked about how her husband has an uncle that whispers propaganda in his ear and tells him to just live it up.  The hermana told us that now her husband has a serious drinking problem. We went back to the house later in the week and there was her husband. He has a long beard and a dark countenance. He defiantly told me that he is now another religion. He is unemployed and he questioned why we are here and said that we couldn’t have a testimony.  He let his life fall into sin and that is when he made the transition out of the church.   

We also knocked on a door and a man opened it up and said come on in before I had a chance to say anything.  Ha I looked at my comp amazed. This could either be a miracle investigator, or someone that just wants to argue, or we are about to be murdered.   That third one seems to be a possibility. Well, he told me he was another religion and we started in on an interesting discussion about our decisions in this life.  His argument was that this life is disconnected to what follows; that the bible is for this life. He suggested that if we follow its precepts we will be happy in this life and if not, we will have less happiness. But after this life God will forgive us if we say sorry and all will be well.  I read him 2 Nephi 28: 7-9, and honestly expected him to be dumbfounded about how closely his false doctrine matched up, but he just couldn’t accept it.  Really his argument was of one that he was afraid to take responsibility for his actions and unwilling to change anything about them.  His buddy was sitting on the couch next to him - 70 pounds overweight and a beard that covered all three chins. He was sweating pure beer, and completely stoned by some drug. They had beer on the table, although the man i was talking to was sober.  We had a good time with the lesson and it wasn’t ever a fight or argument. He told me that not to live in a straight jacket, locked in the house. He suggested I ought to get out there and live.   he said "when you get home your dad will say, boy, I sent you to Mexico to have a good time, help out were you could, and learn Spanish. How did you do?  Your dad will be so disappointed if you didn’t live it up."  haha – Dad, try not to be too disappointed.

Elder Oaks talks about this judgment in a great talk "Judge not and Judge.   It is how it is required of us to make judgments that say ones’ behavior is wrong. We are not to condemn.    I would love to help these people. Alma said "if only I could have the voice of an angel." But we can’t blast guilt on them to help them change. They have to open their hearts. All we can do is show them a contrasting light. 

ha todo bien - but I love you all,  keep me informed.  Talk to you next week.

 

speen

 

 

Bad Water

Well – don’t drink the wáter here. The stomach problems wouldn’t go away but I kept thinking it would pass.  Wednesday night was the low point.  The loss of electrolytes made me pretty dizzy. We prayed that we would be able to have a day of work.  I bought some Gatorade and Pepto and I felt a lot better. My comp told the Hermana that we ate with that I was sick and she was all worried and anxious about it. They are so nice here. She told us to call Hermana Flores to get permission to see a doctor.  I thought we will give it a few more days to see what happens.  By some miracle I was fine all day and we had great lessons. But that night as we got in things deteriorated. So my comp took the pone and said if you won’t call, I will. He called Hermana Flores. We saw the doctor and I had a stomach infection. He gave me the meds, which are super cheap here. Yay - Mexico. I was totally fine the next day. Parras water - not clean.

Our house has had Elder’s living here for ten years. I think we did its first deep clean in 10 years and maybe the first cleaning – period. We found all sorts of treasures.  We filled 2 large black bags with junk. We also fixed the boiler.  We bought a bunch of chemicals and went to work. We were able to restore things to their natural color.

 

Yesterday we got a call that there was going to be a broadcast satellite that we all needed to attend. Our chapel couldn’t receive the connection so we had to go to San Pedro. The broadcast turned out to be something like a Stake Conference in lower Mexico. It was a 3 hour drive but it was ok because we slept at the district leaders’ house and we are good buds. We played soccer this morning for our district activity.      

Hannah’s wedding looked pretty stellar from the photos. 

It was cold on Friday and that puppy by my foot was wet and freezing. So while we were contacting it came over and laid down to get warm.  

 

Flavored Water

On Thursday for lunch we made sandwiches with a Hermana.  She offered us Coke to drink but I told her that we couldn’t as it is a rule that we can’t (although every third Elder breaks that one).  It was all she had as that is what they drink here every meal. I told her water was great, and I pointed to her purified water.  She filled a pitcher with tap water and then put flavoring in it. I saw her do it, but I heard that the water was pure here because we were in the mountains.  Nope.  About an hour later my stomach started talking in a very creaky dialect.   The rest of the day I could feel it moving through me.  I didn’t hurt - it was just a very weird feeling.  Well, that night I went to bed knowing that the night wouldn't be a perfectly peaceful one. It is still working its magic today.  

They are harvesting walnuts this week; thousands and thousands of them.  They put them in all types of food; especially candies and bread. They give me zits.  The men climb the tall trees and then use bamboo to smack the nut out of the tree. Then the children collect the nuts.  We have to be careful because the trees hang over the streets and it is like a hail storm when they start whacking away above our heads

I am staying in touch with a Hermana that we baptized in our other area. She left to go to school in the capital two weeks after she was baptized.  It was kind of a miracle that we found her in the small time she was here. She knows English so she writes me in English to practice and I write her back in Spanish. She is cranking through the Book of Mormon.  

Another cool story is we were walking to see a less active in the Pri. That pic I sent of me standing on a hill, leads to the area that sits above the rest of Parras.  It is a climb to get up there.  As we were walking a man started to shouting to us to come over to this small building. I thought “I’m either about to be murdered or get in a bible bash with some pastor. Nope. This man told us to talk to a Hermana that was sitting at the desk inside. She said I have seen you walk past my door for years now. What do you believe? We taught her a bit and gave her a pamphlet. The next day while walking on the same street we were summoned again. She said I love to read and I loved your pamphlet but it was really short. Do you have anything longer? Why yes we do.  We gave her a Book of Mormon. We are going to see her again tonight.

My comp talks in his sleep. I am not complaining. It is incredibly amusing.  He has very long conversations, and I just lay there and listen.  The funniest part is that it is often a monologue of him teaching a lesson. He will say, "Hermano mena will you promise to go to church this Sunday.  That is great. I know this will be a blessing for you and your family."

Sam Leatham was robbed this week. He was in his study room with his companion and just getting ready to leave to go do some service for a member. The other Elders that live in the house had left about five minutes earlier and didn’t lock the door or gate because they knew Sam was leaving soon. Two intoxicated guys went running into their room and they had a gun. Sam is ok and nothing happened. They stole his iPod and backpack that had $40 dollars but luckily the only other things in the backpack was pamphlets and Books of Mormon. They also stole some oatmeal and a few hamburger patties from the kitchen haha.

Truman Did Some Art Work for Me