August 4, 2014

Hmm, where to start. 

Okay, so my new area is named Juarez and we actually have the mission offices in our area which is super duper convenient. Our area is positively huge. Seriously, HUGE. We have the entire ward to ourselves and it takes about an hour and a half to walk from one side of our area to the other. It's good however because we're not limited as to where in the ward we can go. 

We live in an apartment which isn't too bad even though it's evident that it has had generations upon generations of missionaries, which is awesome because those generations and generations of missionaries have left plenty of hangers to use in our closets. =) Hermana Christensen loves our apartment because there is a member family on each floor of our building. They may not be in our ward but they love us anyway. =) One of those families lives across the landing of our floor and likes to call us the "Elderas" instead of Hermanas. Every time we knock on their door because we have a question or something and they ask who it is, I say "Pizza!" To my surprise...they never open the door until we say that it's the Elderas.

Here we are seeing a lot of miracles. We currently have 5 baptism dates and are constantly striving to find more people to teach. We have the baptism this Saturday of Doris. She's a single mom of two kids and is just amazing. She loves the Church and loves the idea that she can be with her family forever. Her husband died some time ago and just can't wait to enter the temple so that her family can be together forever. 

There's a family of a recent convert. The recent convert is Imer and he was the first person I met in this ward. He's super fired up to go on a mission and just can't wait. He goes out with the missionaries at least once a week and is doing all he can to help his family work towards their baptism date. Speaking of his family, his mom, dad, and sister in law have a baptism date but there's a catch....they have to get married first. The good news is that they want to get married, the bad news is that it's surprisingly difficult to get married in Mexico. You have to pay a lot of money and trying to find someone who will do it for free or cheap is not easy however, we're continually praying and searching and doing whatever we can to make this goal.

One of our baptism dates is Martin. He's a 10 year old orphan who has quite the problem with lying and taking things that aren't his. I can't tell you how much it broke my heart to tell him that we would need to talk to his parents in order for him to be baptized and for him to quietly say that he doesn't have parents, that they died in a combi accident when he was 5. While he has a strong desire to be baptized, his aunt and uncle who take care of him refuse to give their permission for him to be baptized unless he breaks the bad habits. We were hoping to have him enter the waters of baptism buy the 19th but the deal became that if we can help him change and break those habits by the 30th of August, he can be baptized. To be honest, after an hour and a half of listening to his uncle talk about random things that had nothing to do with his nephew being baptized, I'm just glad that we have permission to continue teaching him and that we are now friends with his uncle. Thank goodness my companion was able to practice her new found patience and listen to him.

Sadly, my recording of what happened on Tuesday won't send through email. Probably because it's 25 minutes long. I don't have time to write out what happened then but I will tell you that earthquakes feel strong when you're on the second floor and that it's super confusing to wake out of a dead sleep to find that your bed is moving like a boat on the ocean. Nothing bad happened but it was enough to shake our windows and doors. 

Also on Tuesday my companion and I got given alcohol without us knowing it. It didn't burn or anything so I didn't think anything of it but when our bodies started to feel funny and we were singing in the street and laughing like idiots, we figured something was amiss. We asked a member about the drink we had been given and found that it was not something that we should ever drink again. =P

I know it's late but HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANDACE!!!!!!

I love you all! thank you so much for the package and everything that you do! 

I had to switch computers so I'll have to upload pictures next week. 

Love you!