Divisions and Stake Conference

Hola,

Well, another week has come and gone here in Mexico.  This week was pretty good.  We're finally feeling comfortable in our area, so hopefully in the weeks that come we'll start having more and more success.  This week we started out doing divisions with the district leader, Elder Sanchez.  He came to our area with me, and I did my best to walk him to death.  (We have a kind of big area that's kind of far from everything, so we do a lot of walking.) Other than that though, things went pretty well.  We're starting to find some people to teach here as well, which helps quite a bit.  We have a couple good families we are teaching, and I have high hopes that they will keep progressing.  One investigator in particular, Guadalupe, is coming along pretty well, and we'll see what happens with her in the week to come.

As far as news goes, we had stake conference here this weekend.  They said they were going to be broadcasting the Sunday session to our chaple, so we were pretty happy that we didn't have to go all the way to the stake center.  But what we didn't realize was how they were going to be broadcasting it.  We got to the chaple and realized that they had set up a skype call from the stake center to broadcast the conference.  And they didn't even have a seperate microphone or webcam from what I could tell.  So it was a bit... impossible to hear what anyone was saying.  And then the video cut out for about ten minutes or so about half way through.  Needless to say, I've seen better stake conferences.  Still, they are trying though.

Other than that, we had a "day of exercise" for the entire mission today.  I prefer the name "Sam still hates competetive sports day".  We got there, and they had a rotation set up so that every zone would be playing or doing something, and every 20 minutes we changed areas.  However, because of how the rotation worked, we ended up playing against the same two zones the entire time.  And one of them had about twice as many missionaries as our zone, and about three times as many by mass.  So, needless to say, we lost.  Bad.  Still, it was fun to get the entire mission together for something like this.  And we don't have district meeting because of it, so that's good.

That's about it for news for me this week.  As far as me being the only american, that is a weird occurance.  When I came, there were five americans: me and my MTC companion, Elder Grant, and three sister missionaries.  All in all there were 11 of us that got here the same day.  Now there are five of us.  That doesn't usually happen.

I'm glad to hear everything is going good for you guys there.  I can't believe there are only two more weeks of school.  I guess this means you've pretty much survived teaching 6th grade.  Do you know if you'll have to teach it again next year, or do you go back to fifth grade only?

Ok, that's it for me this week.  I love you, and I'll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

P.S.  I got a postcard from you today, from when you went to deadhorse point.  Just thought you'ld like to know that the mail system is still kind of crappy here.

Green Cards, Sickness & A Visit from Elder Bednar

Hola,

First off, I'm sorry for any spelling errors that come up in this letter.  Somebody had the clever idea of putting the finger mark for the left hand on the H instead of on the J, and it's throwing me off really bad.  Just a heads up if some gibberish comes up.

So, my week was interesting, to say the least. We started off with a lovely stomach bug that pretty much took everything out of us for a couple days.  The bad part lasted until Wednesday, so on Thursday we were feeling a bit better.  However, I got a call saying that I had to go to the immigration office in Polanco to renew my green card Thursday in the morning.  So that pretty much got rid of Thursday as far as work goes.  Then on Friday we had the conference with Elder Bednar, which originally was supposed to start at 9.  Then it got pushed back to 1, and he didn't end up getting there until about 2:30.  By the time we got done with everything in Chalco and got back to our area it was about 8:30 at night.  So, this week we hardly saw our area.  Needless to say, it makes missionary work a bit difficult when you can't go to your area.  Still, not everything was bad, so that's OK.

So, after that resumen, I'll get to the good stuff.  First off, Polanco.  Polanco is a part of the DF, what we know of as Mexico City.  It's a fairly nice part of the city, but it's where all the Jews live, so, from what I've heard, it's not actually open to missionary work.  But it's probably had more missionaries pass through it than any other part of the city because all of the foreigners from the Mexico City missions have to go there for their visa stuff.  So, we got to Chalco about 8:30 in the morning, and we left the offices about 9 to go to Polanco.  Generally when you go to Polanco you go with all of the people that got to Mexico with you.  However, all of the americans that got here with me went home for sickness, so it was just me and Elder Hall and the secretaries.  So, we got there about 11, and actually got through everything fairly fast, since it was just me doing things.  So after that we went to a store called american kosher.  This store is wonderful because they sell all sorts of american sodas and things like that.  So I stocked up a bit on things like cream soda and miracle whip.  (Don't judge me.  It's been over a year since I've eaten miracle whip.)  Then we went back to Chalco and back to our area.  Basically it's fun to go there every once in awhile, but I've heard it's actually one of the more stressful parts of the secretaries' job, more than anything because they have to do all the paperwork part.

Obviously, the best part of the week was the mission conference with Elder Bednar.  The only bad part was the wait at the beginning.  Especially since we were waiting outside, in the sun, in suits.  We were outside because we took a mission picture with him when he first got there.  That was worth the wait, but it wasn't the most fun wait I've had.  Anyways, after that we went inside and stated the conference.  Elder Bednar is traveling with Elder DeHoyos, the area president of Mexico.  So he started off talking a little bit about the blessings of serving a mission.  Then Elder Bednar got up, and told us that he would be doing things a bit differently.  He told us that he wasn't going to be talking to us, rather talking with us.  When you hear a member of the 12 say that, you have two simultaneos reactions.  First off, you are happy to have the chance to talk directly with an apostle of the Lord.  But at the same time, you feel scared to death about talking directly with an apostle of the Lord.  He explained that this is because we like to play a game in the church called: guess what's in my head.  Basically that's when a teacher, or whoever, calls on somebody and asks a question expecting the exact answer they have in their head.  He then told us that we would not be playing that game.  Instead, he basically gave us a model of how we should teach as missionaries, although it can be applied to any teacher in the church.  First off, he assigned us three talks that he had given to read as homework.  Then he started off asking us what we had liked from the talks.  When somebody answered, he started inspired questions to find out why that part had stuck out, to find out what the person needed to hear.  Then he explained a bit more about the principle, guided by the spirit, basically helping fill the need.  Then he moved on to the next person.  He followed this system for awhile, then explained that he had been showing us a pattern of teaching that we should put in practice.  Ultimately it was a very good experience, and I'm hoping to be able to change the way I teach to help those around me more.

Well, that's about it for me this week.  I'm glad to hear that things are going good, if a bit crazy, at home.  I love you and I'll talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

Post Mothers Day

Hola,

First off, happy mother's day!  I got thinking about it and I'm pretty sure I was a terrible child and never said that during our call on Saturday, so I'm trying to repent of my mistake now.  It sounds like you had a good mother's day, and I hope you enjoy some Hale Center for me.  

Well, not too much new has happened since Saturday, so this is going to be a bit of a short one.  Elder Hall did end up getting a hold of his family, so everything turned out OK as far as that goes.  The ward didn't really do anything different for mother's day, except that President Crickmore came and gave a talk in Sacrament about missionary work.  They didn't even get fake flowers, so you got pretty spoiled this year.

That's about it for news on my part.  I'm glad to hear the girls are keeping up on the nerdiness there.  It makes me feel better being here in Mexico knowing there is a nerd presence in the house.  Did you ever think you would end up with such weird children when you got married?

OK, I love you, and I'll write you next week.  I promise I'll have more to tell you then.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

Star Wars Day

Hola,

Well, another week has come and gone.  A lot of things have happened this last week.  One week ago, I was junior comp, and now I'm training.  I must admit, it's been a bit of a system shock, both physically and spiritually.  I meant to ask you guys to guess whether my new companion was going to be american or latino, but the time has passed.  So, here it comes.  My new companion is... Elder Hall.  He is from Arkansas, and speaks virtually no Spanish.  He's a good guy, and he's trying hard, but he's had a kind of rough first week.  This week we basically did a treasure hunt, which we kind of lost.  By the end of the week we had found out where most of the investigators they left us lived, but we weren't able to teach very many lessons.  Not everything was bad though.  We found a great new family to teach.  We talked to the grandpa in the street on Wednesday, and set up an appointment for Friday.  We got there on Friday, and when we came in we got a pretty good shock.  The grandpa and his wife were there, along with their son and his wife, and 7 or 8 grandkids (Not all of them from the same parents).  We ended up teaching the first lesson to the grandparents and parents and two of the older kids.  We have another appointment with them tomorrow, and we'll see how everything goes, but I have faith that they are going to progress.  Part of the problem this last week is that we didn't have a ward directory, and the members that the last missionaries told us could help us went to Morelos for a few days for a young single adult activity.  But they're back now, and we have the directory, so everything should hopefully go smoother from here on out.

Well, other than that things were pretty good this week.  I'm still getting used to the whole training thing, but it's been fun so far.  I would have liked to have been able to know the area beforehand, but ultimately the Lord knows what He is doing.  Still, Elder Hall and I get along pretty well so far.  To be honest, I'm kind of glad I got an american to train.  It allows me to share the things that I have learned, having been in his position about a year ago.  Not that I have anything against latinos, it's just that they have different challenges, and I might not be able to help them as well as I can an american.  It's also kind of nice since he's my second american companion in my entire mission.  It's also fun to see the mistakes he makes.  (Greenie Spanish mistakes can be pretty funny.  The other day he was trying to say disculpe, which means exuse me, but he ended up saying escupeme, which means spit on me.)

As far as the ward goes, it's pretty good.  It's one of the stronger wards I've seen, a staple of the stake where I'm serving, called Solidaridad.  Anyways, the ward is called Independencia.  Like I was saying, it's a fairly strong ward, although not very punctual.  Our area is pretty far from the chaple though, which kind of sucks.  We live about 30 minutes walking distance from the chaple, and our area is even farther away.  I'm hoping to find some public transportation that passes by the chaple, for the sake of the investigators.  Other than that though, things are pretty good in the ward here.  We live next door to members, which is always nice.  They're not the most active members I've met, but the less actives love the missionaries here, so that's OK.  (We were actually talking about how weird that is.  I've never been a missionary in the states, but in my experience the less actives usually want nothing to do with the church.  I guess I'd have to ask the missionaries there how the less actives recieve them.)

That's about it for news on my part.  Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find somebody to help us out to call home on mothers day.  I'm going to talk to our neighbors, and I'll try to get news to you as soon as I can.  It's been kind of hard this week since we didn't know anybody, and I really don't know how it's going to work out.  I'm sure the Lord will provide a way though.  If worse comes to worse, we'll go to an internet cafe to call home.  Today we found out that we can call home Saturday or Sunday, so if that ends up being the case it would be on Saturday.  I'll let you know as soon as I have word, I just wasn't expecting to end up in a situation like this so soon to mother's day.

I love you so much.  If all goes according to plan I'll talk to you this weekend.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

PS Here is a picture of my new companion Elder Hall