Well, here we are again. New area, new companion, new... everything basically. My companion is named Elder Palacios. He's from the northern part of the state of Mexico, about 3 or 4 hours from where we are. Basically it would be like if I had gotten called to serve in St. George for my mission. So far we get along pretty well, so we'll see how things go. As has also pretty much been the pattern, he's district leader. One thing that is new is that this is the first time I've had sister missionaries in my district. There are actually more sisters than elders in the zone here. There are only three companionships of elders, the two district leaders and their companions, and the zone leaders, and there are four companionships of sister missionaries. In our district, there are three sisters from Mexico and one, believe it or not, from Samoa. The first time I saw her, I was pretty surprised. I was not expecting to see polynesians here in Mexico. Still, her Spanish is pretty good, and the Lord knows better than us where he needs us. Still, I do have to wonder what her family thought when she opened up her call. As far as my new area goes, so far it's pretty good. I'm in a pueblo called San Juan Tehuixtitlan (te wis tit lan). The areas here have some of the highest membership in the mission. For example, usually there are at least two companionships in a ward in other parts of the mission. Here, we have two wards in our area, and I've had bigger areas than this. It's also the most beautiful area I've had. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Oregon. There are pine trees (Yes, apparently those exist down here.), Volcanic mountains, and it's the coldest area I've had, which is great going into winter. All in all it's a great area. The one problem is that's it's hard to find new people to teach, because pretty much everyone who isn't a member is Catholic. Still, we have some people we're teaching, and I've got good hopes for them.
Other than that, things were more or less the same this week. My companion and I did learn a valuable lesson in patience this week. On Saturday, we could find almost nobody at home. We eat at 2:00, and usually we've had three lessons by that point. This day we had only managed to have one. There was hardly anybody in the streets, basically, it was a hard morning. We went to the food pretty discouraged, but we tried not to let it get to us too much. Afterwords, we had an appointment set up with a less active to have a guided tour of the chaple. Apparently it's been hard to go through with one of those with her, but this day we went to her house and she was ready to go. We went to the chaple with her and one of her grandsons. Turns out she hasn't gone to church for 37 years, but she's willing to start again, and her grandson, who's 11, wants to get baptised. After we left my companion turned to me and said "God exists." (Well he actually said "Dios existe.") So I guess that's the lesson of the week, God exists. (And yes, they both went to church yesterday.)
I've learned some new reasons why I don't like Jehovah's witnesses this week as well. For example, there is a rule in the white handbook that we are not aloud to teach in front of churches of other religions. This week I learned why. Apparently the Jehovah's witnesses do not have the same rule, because they went knocking doors right in front of the chaple here. It instantly made me lose respect for them. I certainly don't want to make people feel the same way about me, so I plan on keep that rule, not that I've broken it. One thing I have learned is that Catholics are a lot easier to teach than JWs. Basically the lesson is that JWs are not well liked here in the mission. I try not to judge them, but they make it difficult at times.
That's about it for me this week. I love you and I'll write you next week.
Love,
Elder Samuel Long
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