Letter #1
This past week has been kind of crazy, but also super awesome! My mission president and his wife are really nice and Queretaro is super clean compared to Mexico City. I was really nervous on my first day to find out where I was going and who my companion was. I ended up going to San Miguel de Allende and got there kind of late at night. My companion is Elder Monroy and he is super awesome! He is from the state of Hidalgo and he speaks English. However he makes me speak Spanish and he will only speak English to me if its really important or if I don't know a word. He is really patient with me learning the language and I couldn't have asked for a better companion. He has lots of ideas for how we work in this area and I am really excited. We live with the other elders in our district, Elder Bush and Elder Malderva. We also have sister missionaries in our district who live in Dolores Hidalgo which I visited last week for a district meeting. Its a smaller town and is also really beautiful. One kind of fun story about my apartment is that my second day in the field, there was a scorpion on the bathroom floor while I was using the bathroom. That was kind of freaky! We killed it and apparently that is not very common here.
As far as learning Spanish, listening is definitely my weakness. They talk fast and with accents that can be difficult to understand. I can understand a lot more now, but I have a long way to go. People can understand what I am saying in the streets even with my american accent, but my companion and I are helping each other with pronunciation in English and Spanish.
We are opening this area and there haven't been young missionaries here for several years. We have been working hard contacting old investigators and in the streets to find people to teach. We have also been working very closely with the members here who are very supportive. There are two wards in the city of San Miguel, and my area is called Aldea after the Aldea ward. Our ward has about 300 members, but only 50 went to church this week. We have lots of work to do with reactivation and finding new people! We eat lunch with a member almost everyday. The food here is amazing!!!! Contacting in the streets is still difficult for me, but I'm getting a lot more comfortable with it and my companion makes sure I am doing it a lot to learn. Sometimes we meet some pretty crazy people which can be interesting. Last night we met an Italian who started talking to us about other dimensions and reptile people and weird stuff like that. Speaking of foreigners, there are a lot of tourists here and many Americans actually live here. Most of them hang out in the center of town, but some live in the neighborhoods. It´s kind of weird now to hear English in the streets every now and then.
San Miguel is very pretty, especially overlooking the city or in the center of town. Of course there are always neighborhoods that are not so pretty, but that's okay. All of the streets are cobblestone which is cool to see, but is not so fun to walk on all day. For the most part the city is really safe, it is only at nigh time that we have restrictions on where we can be as missionaries. The people here are nice and it amazed me how many people believe in Jesus and accept our invitations to meet with them. My first night contacting all but one person gave us their address to visit them. Clearly the Lord has prepared people here for us to teach. A spiritual moment this week was yesterday when my companion and I were looking for a less active member, we ended up finding his family instead. They are all less active now and hardly remember the Gospel and the fourth generation has never been exposed to it. They let us in and we taught a lesson about the Book of Mormon. They want us to come back later to teach them this Saturday!
I love it here and I love being able to share the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with the people here. My heart is full and I am so glad that I have the authority to teach other people and invite them to come unto Christ. Missionary life can have its spiritual highs and emotional lows, but it definitely is unlike anything I have every experienced before. The transition from the MTC was interesting, since there are less rules here. However, it is actually kind of nice to choose my own schedule and be able to spend time outside instead of in a classroom all day.
Time flies on the mission, but every day has something new and there is always more work to be done. I know that this church is the only living church headed by Jesus Christ himself and it brings me great joy to know that I have the opportunity to be his representative to the people of San Miguel right now.
I love you all and I hope you are all doing well!
P.S. My companion baptized a girl named Dennise last week. She is actually a member and was baptized when she was 8, but somehow her records got lost and they had to do it again. I didn't know this until after the service since I don't understand what is going on most of the time since everyone is speaking in Spanish.
P.P.S. Sorry for the lack of apostrophes, I still don't know how to type them on a Spanish keyboard.
Letter #2 (To Mom answering some of my questions)
My P Day is on Mondays. My companion speaks sufficient English, but certainly more than I speak Spanish. He is really awesome and very patient with my lack of ability to communicate effectively. We live in a safer area of town that's somewhat close to the center. The most difficult part for me right now is understanding what people are saying. Its really safe here and very pretty. I have not had any intestinal issues or had any problems with the food. In fact, the food here is really not as spicy as everyone makes it sound. The members make really good food and we eat lunch with them almost every day. I do have to make my own dinner and breakfast, but lunch is the biggest meal of the day here. I am so excited to get working here and I already love being a real missionary! I love you sooo much!!
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