Hola,
Well, another six weeks have come and gone (still don't really believe it) and you know what that means, cambios, or changes, or transfers or... well, you get the idea. As has been the pattern for me, I'm leaving my area for a new one. My new area is San Juan. I've heard it's a great area, that the scenery is very beautiful, the people very nice, though mostly VERY catholic. All in all I'm excited to see what experiences it brings me. And as far as food goes, I've heard that it's hard to leave this area I'm going to without gaining some weight, because all the members give you huge portions, and expect you to eat at least seconds. Oh, it's also rather close to an active volcano. That's OK though, haven't seen any smoke recently from old Popo, so I should be fine. There are some things I'll miss from this area though. The members are wonderful people, and I really am going to miss them. It's also hard to leave the people we're teaching. Oh, and some of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten Fridays and Saturdays. They cost about $2.50, and they are packed. They have the standard toppings, lettuce, tomato, onions, ketchup (speaking of ketchup, I love the Mexican word for it. It's catsup, but you say it like cat soup. Just thought you would like to know that, don't know why.) and mustard. But on top of that, they put two kinds of cheese, american and oaxaca (You say it like Wahaka). Queso oaxaca is kind of like mozarella cheese. They top that with ham and let it melt onto the patty. Then they put the other toppings, plus avocado. If that doesn't make your mouth water I'm afraid you've got some issues. (I can't believe I just took that much space describing a hamburger. Still, that gives you an idea of how good they are.)
Other than that life goes on here in the mission. We teach some people, eat some real mexican food, things like that. And to answer your question, there are in fact chicken enchiladas here. The main difference is that the people here fry EVERYTHING. I seriously can't remember too many days when I haven't eaten something fried here. Not that it tastes bad, it just sits a bit heavy at times, especially when you have to leave and go walk for a while. The members are pretty good at keeping us fed though, so don't worry about that.
One thing we did have recently was another multi-zone conference with another seventy. This time it was Elder Salinas. He talked about the most effective way to teach the people, and to help them ultimately get baptized. He explained that there are two different ways of bringing investigators to baptism, the stairs and the elevator. The difference is that when you use the elevator, you focus on a few investigators at a time, and don't pay too much attention to the others until they've gotten baptized, and the elevator can return to pick them up. If you use the stairs, you have investigators at different stages in their conversion, but they're all progressing, so you baptize more regularly. To accomplish this, one of the most important things he told us is to work with the members. He said this includes receiving references, teaching lessons with members, and if it's possible in the house of a member. The day after this, he held a meeting with the church leaders in the mission, and the missionaries. During this meeting he talked about self sufficiency. He said that the official definition of self sufficiency in the church is the ability to provide for the temporal and spiritual needs of you and your family, and to be able to help those around you as well. He had many great things to say about this. He said the first thing we need to have to be self sufficient is a sufficiency of faith. He gave the example of the rich young man who asked Christ what he needed to do to obtain eternal life. Christ told him to keep the commandments. When the man said he did that, Christ told him to sell what he had and give to the poor. The young man found this hard, and left discouraged. Elder Salinas explained that this man was not self sufficient, even though he had more than enough to provide for himself, because he did not have the faith to help others. He then applied this to the church and said that for a ward to be self sufficient, it needs to take care of it's own members, and help others well. He gave the example that if a ward has four missionaries serving in it's boundaries, there need to be five members of the ward serving as missionaries to be self sufficient. I don't have enough time to describe all of what he said, but I truely enjoyed listening to him. I hope to hear him in General Conference sometime because he's a really good speaker.
That's about all I've got for you this week. As far as talks about me, I don't honestly know what to tell you to say. You'll have to tell me what you end up saying. (Don't tell too many embarasing stories. XD) I love you, and I'll write you next week.
Love,
Elder Samuel Long
P.S. I did actually get a letter from the primary awhile ago. I've meant to write them back but I've yet to see any way of sending a letter. If you would pass on a message I would appreciate it. Let them know that I miss them, and I think of them often. We had the primary program yesterday in this ward, and it made me miss singing with the primary kids. Children really are the same no matter where you go. Some of the younger ones wandered off in the middle of the program, most of them couldn't hold still while they were singing, and I saw at least two of them talking during one of the songs. It really brought back some memories. Let them know that I'm proud of the ones that got baptized recently. Really just send them my love.
