Week 3!!

     Hola again!! This last week was pretty great. My companion and I work hard and we have a lot of success. One cool story from this week happened last Tuesday. Every Tuesday, we have zone conferences. In these meetings we learn how to be better missionaries and meet with our districts to talk about numbers and how to be better. In this last meeting, we learned how to contact a bus the best way. (meaning talking to people on a bus) Basically, you pay the bus driver, ask for permission to present yourselves to the people on the bus, and get everybody´s attention. After you have their attention, you introduce yourself and what you´re doing. Then you teach a 30 second principle about the gospel, say that you and your companion will be coming around seeing who is interested in hearing more, and talk to people in the front while your companion goes to the back. So right after the meeting ended and we were going back to our areas, of course we need to get on a bus. So my companion wants me to contact the bus. I told him to do the first one then I´d do the next. At this point, we were already sitting down on the bus, so we started to go to the front. It was a very full bus to say the least. My companion says,´´well there´s not enough room up there for both of us. You got it.´´ And turns around and walks away. Talk about getting thrown under the bus. Or rather getting thrown to the front of the bus....So I just went for it. I asked for permission to present ourselves, he said yes, so I turned around and got everybody´s attention. I had to yell because it was pretty loud. So there I am, yelling in spanish to a bus full of people I don´t know preaching the gospel. After I was done, I said thank you for your time, and began to ask if people were interested. I got a couple names who were interested. I sat down after we were done talking to people, and my companion told me that he didn´t ever have the guts to contact a bus until last month, and my example would stick with the other missionaries who were on the bus. I felt pretty good about myself! Also this week, I had my first companion exchange. I went with Elder Porter to his area and spent the night there. It was pretty interesting going to a new area. Elder Porter is from South Jordan. So I came to Mexico to be with elders from Draper and South Jordan. In other news, the food is still killing me. haha. My mouth is not used to spicy food, and we have had some pretty spicy food these last 3 weeks. My lips literally were burnt. They looked like they were sunburnt, but they were burnt from the food. We eat lunch with members every single day, and one family found out that I´m fresh from the US, and they made us hamburgers and fries. I had 6. haha. The members here are great, and they are so willing to help us out. Our bishop here is so excited about missionary work, and he´s fun to be around. My companion´s dad and our bishop were actually mission companions when they served. Talk about a small world. Another night while we were on the street, we were stopped by a lady and her daughter. She asked who we were and what we were doing. (probably because we stick out like sore thumbs) and my companion´s phone rang and he had to take the call. So I was left to talk to this lady by myself. I told her our purpose and taught a principle. I gave her a pamphlet and invited her to church. It was pretty cool. Whenever I need to talk by myself while my companion takes a call, I always seem to find words to say and remember to invite them to church. I always feel happy after I do it. It´s pretty nerve racking thinking about it. But when it happens, it makes me happy. Another interesting thing happened. Remember the story I wrote about last week about my companion and I stopping on a dime and leaving quickly? Well we may have found out why we had the terrible feeling that we needed to leave. We took a member with us to a lesson, and it was near that same area where we had the feeling. I had the prompting to tell him the story of our experience. So I told him our experience in Spanish, and he told us an interesting story. The lady that lives in that house has a brother who used drugs to buy power. A lot of people hate him. He was at his ranch one day (somewhere separate from where we were) and people were sent to kill him. Well they succeeded. Then the member told us that next, this certain group of people like to target the families of the people they go after next. I was thinking, and a few weeks ago when we were teaching this lady, every time she heard the chain rattle on her gate, she would jump up and see who it was. It didn´t matter what was going on in the lesson, she would jump up to see who was coming in. We don´t know if that´s the reason we had the feeling to leave, but I´m just glad we left. We were told by the member to never go back to that area at night ever again, and he told us some more dangerous places never to go to. Thank goodness for the locals!! Anyways to lighten the mood, here´s one more story before I start sending pictures. One of my last days at the MTC, long story short, one of the cashiers at the bookstore named all his ties. haha so I started naming all my ties after Pokemon, and every time I choose one in the morning it´s always,´´I choose you!´´ It´s pretty great...anyways this morning I had an idea to film myself taking a tour of our house. So I´ll try to send it now and we will see if it works. If it does, I´ll do more videos in the future to save time with pictures. To close, I just want to let you know that I´m doing great. My health is great, I´m learning Spanish quickly, I have the best companion, and I´m having a blast. I can´t believe that today is the 2 month mark. I just blinked and it was 2 months. Thanks for all your support. I can feel your prayers. You are always in my prayers. I love you all so much!

     Love,