WEEK 7

Once again, it´s pretty hard to summarize a full week when yoúre new in a foreign country but I wrote some things down throughout the week so Ill try my best. 

Hermana Best with her companion

I´m understanding more Spanish and speaking a little bit more. There´s a  couple recent convert families that I feel %100 comfortable teaching as well as joking around with, but a couple of the investigators that are already pretty shy are more difficult to talk with. I mainly connect with people because I´m crying at their stories or through hugging them, or nodding, anything with body language. Everyone is pretty understanding that I´m going on my third week of being in Mexico. Although two people at the zone conference told me' you have a good accent' SO THATS GOOD! 

Hermana Best and Hermana Dalrymple at Zone Conference

I´ve attached some pictures of the new house- wow what a blessing. The old house´s bathroom I didn´t even take a picture of...but this one is great! No more walking 45 minutes to all the appointments, we´re by a ton of investigators and recent converts. And we´re by a security station so that´s nice too. 

New house exterior...

... and interior

A lot of people have asked about the heat. It´s rarely hot in PUEBLA! Today was the second day I was hot haha. I´ve attached pictures of the FLASH FLOOD. We were waiting for the elders to go to stake conference in the sun, and then those huge BLACK clouds swooped in. We were shivering in the rain behind a building when a ward mission leader and his wife pulled up in their car and said GET IN! Driving was crazy all the streets had turned into rivers! The car we were in even got stuck for a second, the water was up to the windows. My trainer said she´s been here 8 months and never experienced a flash flood like that. I wear my raincoat almost every day, and tights, its not how you picture Mexico!

Flash Flood!!!

"...the water was up to the windows."

"I wear my raincoat almost everyday..."

One weird change was going from the three meals every day at the MTC to having La Comida, or THE FOOD. Sometimes we say ' we need to call the food' which just means calling the member thats in charge of feeding us that day. It´s just one big meal at 2 in the afternoon and then we don´t really eat dinner. I´m not sure why this doesn´t make me super hungry, but it doesn´t. IF we do have dinner, or Cena, it´s something like arroz con leche (rice with milk, kind of like rice pudding but more milk? i REALLY like it and want to make it a holiday tradition when i get back to the states), or for instance the other night it was hotcakes (they say it in a spanish accent hooat caaykes) aka pancakes with nutella sprinkles and syrup- im not kidding! we only buy a few groceries. Im anxious to try more mexican treats. I´ve loved all the food so far but I cannot stand the drinks. ITs all called agua, but its water PLUs something. so papaya water, cantaloupe water (particularly dont like those two), guava water, tuna water (not the fish, a type of fruit). I try my best to be polite and drink it all but sometimes I can´t finish it. 

I finally saw the volcano!!! I forgot to speak Spanish when I saw it cuz I was so excited, we were with a member and her two daughters and I´m sure I looked crazy, jumping up and down and pointing at it!!! I can´t believe the people here get to live with a view of a SNOW CAPPED VOLCANO!!!! I am going to try to take a really good picture of it, but most days it is obscured by clouds because it´s very cloudy and rainy here. 

Storm clouds rollin' in

Happy as ever to be in Puebla

We contacted a reference of a woman named Judith. Her daugher was there and really wanted to join the church because she had an awesome experience going to EFY but the dad won´t let her be baptized. This made me so sad, I really take for granted how lucky I am that I was born in the church and have a supportive family. I look forward to talking more with this family. 

I´m constantly surprised how much a part of life the missionaries are here. I can think of maybe one time in America the missionaries came over for dinner. HEre everyone is concerned that we´re being fed and such. There´s even a food place we went to today where a member pays and the missionaries eat free on prep day. I´m so glad the elders told us about it! IT´s delicious and the women are so kind. I always eat every last bite. 

The people love when we visit and no one ever turns us down, it´s great. The only thing here is a lot of people are rooted in their catholic beliefs so they´ll say yes, we love the message, it´s beautiful, but you know, we´re catholic so that´s our tradition. 

We had our first real sunday, the first was stake conference. It was a lot of FAST spanish. Lots of friendly , warm people. Different than being stared at on the street, it was a nice change, everyone shaking our hands and saying HOLA HERMANAS! Oh I completely forgot to mention last week that everyone kisses on the cheek and it´s been so funny getting used to it. It just seems to intimate kissing on the cheek, but its just the norm here. 

We´re going to set a baptismal date for this one man , Mauricio. His wife Paty was baptized right before we got here and he is receiving the lessons super well, often times has tears in his eyes, but says he is still waiting for an answer. I know that it will bless Mauricio´s life to be a part of the church, and that he can feel the Spirit. Looking forward to setting a date this week. 

Thank you for all your love and support! miss everyone but every day I think how cool it is that I get to serve the Lord and live in Mexico. I hope this all made sense! I´ve attached some pics!! Love you! 

She asked this be entitled "Dogs Everywhere"

Buying a coke

I can tell she is loving this :)