Week 71 - 11/5/12

The Elder Ala comes from Ala in spanish which means wing.  So elder wing.

Well big news.  My area just doubled in size.  Now we are missionaries of Observatorio and Tehuacan wards.  Yay, two wards.  But the interesting thing about this is Tehuacan ward touches Serdan (one of my old areas.)  Weird huh.  It’s like 1-2 hours away, but they touch. 

Ok so this week was actually really, really slow.  Mostly because of the holiday.  Everyone went off to their pueblos, their home villages.  The Mission Manual totally lies when it says that you should work extra hard on holidays because you can find people in families.  At least in Mexico. Haha.

Tuesday.  At night we went with a member to plan a family home evening, and when we left it started raining.  But we had a really important appointment with someone, Luis Arturo, the guy who was going to be baptized this weekend... but didn’t.  Anyways.  It was on the other side of the area. And when we left it really wasn’t raining too hard, but the roads turned into a river, but seeing as it was a really important appointment we walked through a river of... what I’m pretty sure was poop water. I mean who knows, but I would guess so.  Yeah, turns out he wasn’t there.  Why do people not answer their cell phones?  It could have saved walking knee deep in sewer water.  I actually swam a 500 freestyle just to support Becca.  I got like 6:03, so I think I won.  Not true, but it really happened.

Wednesday.  Well we had a really interesting training.  We learned more about the new program that will be going into effect.  We are officially not allowed to knock doors or contact. Wow, I think there was a cheer for joy all across Mexico haha.  The wards will be giving us a list of 40-50 less active family that we will be visiting.  We had a couple lessons and then the other companionship got the news that they would be leaving so...  I did the only thing that could be done.  I went to their house and took all their food.  Gotta look on the bright side right?

Thursday.  We spent the whole day looking for people to teach and I think we found like one person.

Friday. We had our planner full of appointments and everything fell through.  Everyone was at the cemetery putting food out for their dead. Literally no one was home. 

Saturday.  A little better. In the evening we went with a couple youth to visit some of the youth that are less active.  It was pretty fun.  We ate with a bishop. He is such a funny guy.  Our actual food appointment fell through, but they always give us and his wife cooks really good.

Sunday.  This week was kind of depressing until Sunday.  Sunday was a really good day, other than the fact I had to go to church for 7 hours. Ugh.  We had our new ward at 8 in the morning.  That went until 11. Then we had to go to the ward counsel right after.  Then we had our old ward at 12.  It was pretty great.  All of the converts that I have had came.  Jonathan brought his mom.  Hector blessed the sacrament with me, and barely made it through the prayer cause he was crying.  Then after the sacrament, two investigators came in that we had stopped teaching a couple weeks ago because they weren’t progressing.  I honestly thought they would never come to church.  The classes went really well as well.  Sadly Luis Arturo was not baptized, but it was one of those days were you felt like you are actually making a small difference in this little part of the world.  Good day, but I was struggling in the last hour to stay awake... tooooo muchhhhh churchhhhhh can’t hold on much longggeeerrrr.

Monday today. well..... We played soccer with the zone.  I have been extremely blessed in that I have not had to play much soccer up until now in my mission… so I will not complain too much.  So it gets pretty intense when its Americans vs Mexicans.  You see all the Mexicans are automatically good.  So their team was set.  As far as the Americans go, we had 3 really tall elders that had played a little soccer before the mission.  Then me and another.  He played hockey and was a pretty good goalie.  Then me.  Well I have absolutely no foot work.  But I can play defense at least somewhat ok.  I mean if you’re not afraid of getting hit by the ball you’re good at defense in soccer... Anyways, yeah, we actually beat them somehow... The advantage is that we had the 3 tall elders and it really doesn’t matter how fancy you can move the ball; with long legs they can steal it pretty easily.   Ohh soccer.... fun fun fun, Oh yeah, I also didn’t put on sun screen so I got pretty burned. 

Sorry no fun names this week.

Elder Curtis Wigingtonooon.