Independence Day in Mexico

Hey everyone,

This week actually went pretty fast. Now I just have to try and remember what happened.

This Saturday and Sunday was one of the many Mexican independence days. Everyone told us at midnight that everyone screams ¨Viva Mexico!¨ We stayed up a little late to see. There was a big party in the park a ways away that we could here and a lot of people outside of our house. At midnight we waited and waited and nothing. Nobody yelled or anything. Even their fireworks were pathetic. There was a couple ones that just pop in the air and only one like the ones back home. So we just went to bed.

We did go back out to that crazy guys house. He was drunk again of course. We are starting to meet all of his family. Everything over there is going just fine. We now have a code to go over there if anyone ever gives us problems on the way. All I have to say is I´m going over to ¨La casa de mi tio Cheyito.¨

We invited his son to church this Sunday. He said he would go and would try to get his brother or sister to go with him. We told him we would wait at the bridge at 9:30 to help them find it alright. We got a call Sunday morning that we needed to open the church. We went and did that and showed up late to the bridge. There was no one there so we went back to church. We were heading back to go to their ranch later that day and his brother caught up to us before we got to the bridge to tell us no one was over there. That was pretty lucky. Then he told us that his brother and sister had been waiting for us at the bridge at 9 o'clock. I guess they waited a ways down the road in front of it but we took a different road to get there. That sucked pretty bad but it was good to know that the first time we invited them to church they were going to go. Hopefully we´ll get them to go next week.

Well, I can´t really think of much else to write. I better get going.

Love you all!
Aaron

"First Drunk Kiss"

Hey family!

This week went by pretty fast. I´m struggling once again to remember what happened.We did have to pull a nasty dead rat out of the toilet last Monday. It already had some green stuff growing on it and a bunch of flies. It smelt so freaking awful! We put a board over the toilet and taped it up and put a bag over it again.

We decided to have ourselves another adventure yesterday. We went across the other bridge and just kept going. We found a cool side road and went down there. We walked for quite awhile and a dog started barking and we weren´t exactly sure if we were trespassing or not so we turned back.

We got back to the main road and walked by a house with a couple drunks walking back to it. We passed without either of them seeing us... we thought. We ended up at the river and we were just looking around there a little bit. I turned around and saw them walking towards us, one of them with a shotgun. It was a little unnerving. They kept asking us where we were going and we kept saying we were just walking by. We finally got it into their heads and the one with the gun said OK and took out the shell. He asked us to forgive him and his brother was still stuck on asking us where we were going, haha. He invited us back to his house. I was a little nervous at first so I said a quick prayer and felt OK afterwards, so we went.

His wife gave us some limeade and he started to ask where we were going once again and said there was no exit over there. He then started asking how he could get into the states and if we would help him. We of course told him we couldn´t do that. They were pretty excited to have two gueros in there house. He kept shaking our hands, while his brother was stuck on saying `forgive me' over and over. At one point he shook my hand and pulled himself over to me, hugged me, and gave me a big kiss on the side of my head. At least it wasn´t wet or anything.

His son ended up taking us over to meet his cousin and grandma. His whole family has their own little town over there. I can´t remember what they call their ranch. We had a lesson with them and we are going to be going back this Friday. The son seems like he will progress. He feels like God doesn´t listen to his prayers. His dad drinks all the time and he really wants him to stop. I hope we can help him out.

Well, that was the main part of my week. Oh, we told Piste, an investigator that lived in LA and speaks English, about all of that and he said he had never gone over that bridge cause everyone says there's a lot of crazy people over there.
Oops. 

Love you all!

Aaron

Burgers and A Possible Dead Rat

Hey everyone!

Neither of us are getting transferred this time! I’m pretty happy with that. I was getting pretty sick of moving every transfer.

We had burgers again this last Monday. We ate them with an investigator that used to live in California. He knows English pretty well and likes us to talk in English so he can practice. They were a lot better than the last ones we had. He bought a lot more meat and real hamburger buns.

We found a really good family. We had taught their nephew a few times and he said he wants to be baptized. Then when he wasn´t there we talked with his aunt. She´s a little more standoffish but we always have really good lessons with her. Her husband is now listening to us as well. I think they have two daughters and a son but they say they aren´t really interested in this stuff. We´ll see where it goes from there.

I don´t remember if I told you but we have been having problems with rats climbing up the broken toilet in our room. Oh, and that same toilet lets nasty smells seep out of it. We put a bag over it but it still pumps some out. We have heard the bag moving quite a few times and one night a rat escaped. And two nights ago I was sleeping and all of a sudden heard the plastic moving really loud. I jumped awake and at that same moment so did Elder Enke. It wasn´t as loud as I had heard it but my mind must of amplified it or something. I ran over there and couldn´t tell where it was moving. Elder Enke grabbed the broom and ran over there and saw it get on the board that is on the toilet under the bag and wacked it. We heard it whimper and the bag move a little and then all was quiet. We were hoping that it went back down the toilet.

Well, today there is a pretty bad smell coming out of the toilet. We thought it might be dead in there and we don´t really want to check. I checked it once and heard the bag moving really quietly. It might just be injured and possible have a rotting limb or something. I think we are going to open the bag today and see what’s up. I am not too excited about that but we have to get rid of that stench.

We have found a place here that makes really good burritos. Of course the owner lived in the states so that is probably why. We have to try and pace ourselves now though. We might just get one to celebrate not having transfers.

Once again, we had no investigators at church. Plus, there were only about 25 people at church. We are starting to get things going and the ward is going to start home teaching. I don´t know if they had even heard about it but they really need to talk with the inactive people. I think we are going to be working with the members a lot more this next transfer.

Well, I can´t think of too much that happened this week. So I guess we will see what this week brings.

I love you all!

Aaron

Oh! We are going to be on Google Maps sometime! We were just walking down the street and watched it drive by. I forgot what street it was but I wrote it down in my planner. I just don´t have my planner right now. It probably won´t be up for quite awhile but just be looking. It drove by us twice. One of the roads was Avenida Central and the other was...uh....ahhhhh, I can´t remember. I will tell you next week.

Burgers!!!!

Hey everyone!

Something happened last Monday but I can´t remember what it was. We´ll see if I think of it.

Hmmm, We did make some burgers on Tuesday with some investigators. That went alright but we ended up buying more than we thought we would have to. They said they would buy a lot of stuff but that didn´t happen. They thought one pound of meat would be good enough for 6 people. Maybe if we made them like they do here. Here burgers are about an 8th of an inch thick, if that. We bought another pound and got to work. First we had to start the BBQ. That would have been easy if they didn´t try to help us. they just tried to pack it full of big pieces of wood. Then when Elder Enke and I were trying to get it going they threw  an empty coke bottle and a bunch of plastic wrappers in there. We grabbed that out of there and just told them to not do anything. We didn´t want any toxic burgers that night. They kept trying to tell us how to make them but we just didn´t listen.

We put egg and crackers in there just to make it stretch a little farther. We weren´t sure if the BBQ was hot enough but it did its job. However when we took them off a little of the metal came with them. So we had to pick all of that off. In the end they turned out really good and Elder Enke´s family sent him some BBQ sauce. It was really nice to have almost real American burgers. The meat here always tastes a little odd.

We found a lady a couple of nights ago that had talked with missionaries a lot before. She said right when we showed up she was asking God to help her see what she was missing in her life. Well, there it was but she didn´t really notice that. She said she prayed and felt a beautiful feeling but I guess that's not good enough for her. She is a lawyer and thinks she has to know everything before she gets baptized. We are going to work with her but it seems like it will be pretty tough.

Oh, a couple weeks ago we tried udder. I don´t remember if I told you that. We just bought one taco and split it. I took a piece out just to see what it actually tasted like itself. It was pretty odd. The main thing I didn´t like was that it was chewy. On Tuesday a member made us corn soup. It sounds good right? Well, corn soup here is some broth with a little bit of corn cut in it, then there's a half a corn cob in it, and some balls of masa, the stuff corn tortillas are made of, with some cheese in it, and if that's not enough corn for you they give you a bunch of corn tortillas. The main part that was bad was the balls of masa. there was a ton in the bowl and they just don´t taste good. The first one was alright but it just got worse from there. Then I asked for a ¨little¨ more so she didn´t get offended and I sat and watched her just fill that bowl up to the brim again. I was already really full but tried to do it anyway. I didn´t make it. All I left in there was a half a corn cob. I almost puked three times cause I was so full and the masa balls just didn´t taste good at all at that point. My stomach had a sharp pain at the top and I just couldn´t eat anymore. It was pretty awful.

We had a zone conference this week. I was able to stay over at Nelsons house. We bought some Domino's and for desert we had some ants. They are pretty big and a member fried them for them. They weren´t very good. It was just really crunchy and you got legs and other body parts stuck in your teeth. Well, that was what I remembered from this week.

Next week is transfers and I hope neither of us get transferred. I guess we´ll just have to wait and see.

I love you all!
Aaron

One More Week Gone!!

Hey everyone!

I'm just sitting here trying to think about what happened this week. Lets see if I think of anything.

Well, we helped a Octavio and Josue, his son, move their cattle to get some water. That was really nice to be able to do and was pretty fun. Their ranch wasn´t too far out of Suchiapa and we took their three wheeled moto taxi. Josue was just wearing short shorts, a jersey, and flip flops. He's a pretty funny guy. We just ran and got the cattle out of the field, I stepped in a nice wet cow pie during that, and had to get them across the road. We ran them down to get a drink and headed back. I got some good pics of them too. We ran them back across the road as a combi was passing. It was probably pretty funny for them to see two white boys in shirts and ties running cattle back across.

Yesterday we had 4 investigators that wanted us to pass buy and pick them up for church. We got a text in the morning from one saying he couldn´t go cause he was helping his uncle with something, we walked all the way to get Josue and he said he had to go to their ranch to help his dad, Arbe, a guy we´re helping to stop drinking, wasn´t there, and Ireni had to sell chicken for her family, even though her grandpa and uncle and a lot of other people were there, it sucked pretty bad. We went back to Arbe after sacrament and he was there, he said he had to wait for his cousin but would show up in a half an hour. We waited outside for awhile so he would know where it was. He never showed up.

I don´t know if I remember much else from this week. We found quite a lot of people and have a lot to do. We haven´t been able to make our way over to Rivera yet again but will sometime. Oh, I did talk to some members about why Spanish has both the letter V and B if they make the same sound. All they could come up with is because if they wrote a V where a B was supposed to be their teacher would mark it wrong. People always make that mistake and they should just get rid of one of them.

OK, well I hope everything is going great over there.

Love you all!!
Aaron

Dog Fight

This week went pretty fast over here.

I guess there is a hurricane somewhere in Mexico and that has brought some nice clouds and a little rain to Suchiapa. It was really nice this week. Only a couple of times felt hot and that was just the humidity. The bad thing is that we didn´t have sun to dry our clothes. That was OK the first few days cause we have fans to do that inside.

However, this week we have just a little electricity coming into the house. On full blast our fans go slower than the slowest they can go and sometimes not at all. Our lights go in and out and when they are on its not very bright. We have some bad food in the fridge now that we are going to get rid of today. It;s been pretty interesting.

Last Monday night we happened to walk by a house with a lot of people on it. They were all watching a pitbull attack what I think was their dog. They had some cinder blocks and were throwing and hitting the pitbull but it didn´t even phase it. I walked up to the fence and couldn´t see too much of what was happening. It just looked like the dog was biting the others neck. I stomped and hit the fence right by it and yelled really loud and the dogs took off. The pitbull ran down the street and the other ran into the house. I don´t know if the other lived or not.

A little later the owner of the pit had him on a chain and was walking by as if nothing had happened. The people tried to talk to him but he pretty much just shrugged his shoulders. I really hate pitbulls and more than that, their owners. But that was pretty interesting.

We had two baptisms this Saturday. Jorge and Erick. Jorge is the husband of a recent convert and Erick is a 9 year old kid of one of the members. We ran out of water to fill up the font, of course, and weren´t sure what we were going to do. We had to get to a lesson and luckily the bishop said he would get it figured out. I guess they used the old bucket technique and filled it pretty fast. The baptisms went well and they were confirmed yesterday. Also, Jorge received the Aaronic Priesthood. That was a little soon I thought. Usually they wait 3 weeks. But I think we are having a stake conference soon and he will receive the Melchesidec. They pretty much just threw him in the pool.

We weren´t able to go to Rivera this week cause of the baptisms and it was really crazy. We did find a place here that looks over the river and mountains. It was pretty cool there too. Well, that's my week.

Love and miss you all,

Aaron

Silence

Hi family,

Lets see... this week was alright. That p day kind of messed it up though cause we didn´t have any down time and didn´t get much done. 

We were walking through Suchiapa one day and we saw a fairly tall house with a couple doves on it. We decided we should go to that one. When we walked up to it, it had a wall all the way around it and a big yard, with grass! Its really rare to see that here. The other thing was that it felt like it had air conditioning pumping out of it, the doors and windows were open so we weren´t really sure but it felt amazing. No one answered the door that day but we were definitely going to go back until they did. We finally went back on Saturday and a guy was just sitting in his chair without a shirt of course. He just looked at us and asked what we wanted. We didn´t really say anything to him for some reason, just hello. He ended up getting out of his chair and coming to talk with us. All he asked was where we were from, we told him, and he let us in. He said he never lets any religious people like us in. I guess we were the first ones. He said he turned down just about every religion. He didn´t even know what church we were cause he ended up saying his son went on some two year thing with those Mormons or something like that. We told him thats what we were. We ended up having a good lesson with him. At the end of that he took us out to his back yard. He has a ton of birds, some deer, a rot weiler, and a really ugly turkey. I was able to get some pics of some Tucans while I was there. He is very rich. His daughter left and said she had to get a suitcase. He asked how much money she needed and pulled out his wallet full of $50 bills (500 pesos). When we left, we were walking away and he called us back. He asked how we were doing financially and if we needed any money. Pretty tempting but we of course turned it down. 

We helped clean the church on Saturday as well and the only people to show up were one of our investigators, his wife and her sister ( who are members), and Hermana Angelica. I was kind of mad cause that doesn´t look too good. We cut the grass with some machetes and cleaned all the water that was in the building from a rain storm.

Yesterday was pretty cool too. The whole day just seemed to drag on for some reason. We were just walking all over town and nothing was happening. We had one lesson and that didn´t go too well. After that we saw a road that looked like it didn´t go anywhere but we decided to walk down it. It was a dirt road with fields all around it. One of the fields had a soccer field and a donkey. Welcome to Mexico! We just kept walking and walking. We ended up at the river with a big suspension bridge over it. We went over that and just kept going. We walked up a hill and ended up in a different town. It´s called Rivera Buena Vista. We walked all the way through that. It was so weird to be there. Its really small and the houses are actually spaced apart. At one point we had about 8 dogs start barking and running at us but nothing happened there. We walked to where there were no houses and stopped. For the first time in our missions there was silence. This was pretty amazing. Suchiapa is a pretty loud place, all the time. We just stood there and listened for awhile. We could still hear birds and crickets of course but no one was driving, yelling in a speaker, and shooting off fireworks. I then saw a guy walking down a road with a rifle in his hands and we headed back. I haven´t seen that much here. I think he was just hunting though. We talked with a few people there and we are going to go back this week. I didn´t have my freaking camera this whole time, cause the battery was dead, but I will next time. 

Well, that was my week. I better go.

I love and miss you all!
Aaron