Summer & Pictures

Hola,

Well, another week gone.  This week was pretty good for us here.  As you said, we are right in the heart of the rainy season here.  Recently it feels like the sky has been saving up the rain for about three days and then dumping it all out at once.  So the days without rain have been nice, but when the rain comes, it comes hard and fast and long.  The worst day for rain this week was Thursday.  We had about 5 or 6 hours of it during the day.  And it wasn't just sprinkling.  It got to the point where we had to take refuge for about an hour next to a tortilleria.  It was nice because tortillerias are hot and dry, the perfect match for cold rain.  Since then we haven't gotten too much, so I think we're in for another big one soon.

Other than that, this week has been more or less normal.  We had divisions with one of the companionships in our district on Wednesday.  I went to their area with an Elder who will be going home in about a month.  It was fun getting to work with him a bit.  I also saw a sign that I personally thought was hillarious on the door of one of the members we went to visit.  Obviously it's in Spanish, but I'm still going to include a picture of it with an explination.  Other than that though, it was business as usual.  On Saturday, we had a Family Home Evening with a part member family that we have been teaching.  We talked about the importance of the family, and all in all it went pretty well.  It was pretty nice, since they invited another investigator to the family home evening.  At the end I got to mess with their minds a little bit with a game I've learned during my time in the mission, which is always fun.  Oh, and they gave us some pretty interesting food at the end.  (I'll include a picture of that as well.)  It was a good night all in all, and I'm expecting good things from this family.

That's about it for news for me this week.  It sounds like things are pretty busy for you guys right now.  Hopefully everything will calm down a bit soon.  I am kind of glad to hear that dad is no longer working for Legacy House.  Like you said, it sure took a lot out of him working there.  Hopefully this will help him out a bit more.

OK, I love you, and I'll talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

These are called chicatanas.  They are a delicacy in Oaxaca.  They actually tasted OK, and had the texture of popcorn.  (Yes I did eat some.  I have a video but I haven’t had much luck in sending those through.)

Here’s the sign I talked about.  Allow me to explain.  Here, a lot of houses have these signs:

So, the other sign is making fun of this one using what a lot of mexicans love most: anime, in particular, Dragon Ball.  If you want to know what they say, there’s always google translate.

 

A Visit to the Visitors Center

Hola,

First things first:  ¡Feliz dia de padres!  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by.  I feel like we're just getting started with 2015, yet we're almost half way done.  I hope you have a good Father's Day, and the next one I'll be there to celebrate it with you.

As far as this week goes, it's been pretty good.  I think I mentioned this in my last letter, but I'm back in the DF, or Mexico City.  My new area is in a ward called Buena Vista.  It does in fact have a good view of the city, so it's not a bad name.  The area is pretty nice, although I'm not use to being around so many people.  As far as my new companion goes, they've sent me with another american.  His name is Elder Cory, and he's from Spokane, Washington.  And as has pretty much always been the case with my companions, he's the District Leader.  He's a pretty good guy, and we get along pretty well.  He's the first american companion I've had that it's been easy to talk to in Spanish.  All the other's I've been with have always talked to me in English for the most part.  The interesting thing here is that we live in the same house as the Zone Leaders, Elder Tlachi and Elder Cowdin.  We work in the same ward, so we do a lot of things together.  I do feel a bit weird on the nights when they report, because I'm the only one in the house not doing anything.  Technically I'm senior comp, but that doesn't really count since Elder Cory is DL and in charge of the area.  (Side note:  Senior, not senor.  I officially give up on English.  Desde este punto, voy a escribirte en puro Español si esta bien.  (Me siento raro usar tu.))  That's OK though, I'll serve in whatever possition that the Lord calls me to.  Still, it is fun to live with more missionaries.  It's the first time that I've done it in my mission.  And that's pretty impressive considering the fact that I've had a lot of areas.

So, as far as what I've done this week, other than start to learn a new area, it's been pretty normal.  One thing we did do was go to the visitors center on Friday.  Everybody there is getting pretty excited for the rededication in September.  The open house is going to start one month before hand, in August, but we don't get to have anything to do with it.  Well, the Elders at the very least.  The Lord has spoken, and only the sister missionaries will be participating in the open house.  We can't even take investigators to it, so basically it's like it doesn't exsist.  That's OK though, we'll still be able to invite people to it, and it will still create interest in the church.  As far as the visit that we had this time, it went pretty well.  We were a bit rushed in the visitors center, because they had a cultural activity at 7, and we got there about 5:30.  The activity was a group of highschoolers that prepared a series of traditional dances from different regions of Mexico.  I wasn't able to get pictures because a family sat right in front of us and the parents were holding their son up so that he could se what was going on.  Still, it was pretty fun to see.  There were some pretty interesting dances that they did.  In one, the girls all balanced bottles on their heads the entire time.  (It's Mexico, you can't do anything without it having something to do with alcohol here.)  All in all it was a good trip.  One of the families in particular that came, relatives of the bishop, seemed very interested in what they saw.  We'll see what comes from them.

That's about it for me this week.  It sounds like you had a pretty good trip.  I'm glad you're still getting out and doing things like that.  I hope everything turns out OK as far as the work situation goes.  If they do fire you, they're losing their best worker.  I'm willing to bet that they won't let you go though.  I love you, and I'll talk to you later.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

PS Photo

This is called a cemita.  Elder Tlachi is from Puebla, and this is a traditional poblano food.  A member went to Puebla recently and brought back a couple, so he shared one with Elder Cory and I.  It tasted really good, but it was a bit spicy.  (A bit?  More like a ton.)  It's got pork meat cooked in chile chipotle, with more chile chipotle on top.  Other than that it had avocado, some kind of plant they call papalo, and a TON of cheese, as you can see.  The cheese they use here is called queso oaxaca, or quesillo anywhere else except for this part of Mexico.  It's similar to string cheese.  Anyways, I decided to send you a picture of it just to show you guys what they actually eat in Mexico.

Changes...again

Hola,

Well, here we are again.  Believe it or not, another six weeks have come and gone, and that can only mean one thing: changes.  And as has always been my luck, I'm going to a new area.  As of right now, I only know that I will be going to an area in the stake called Meyehualco.  This will be the second time that I have been in this stake, my first time being my first area.  It should be good though.  It's part of the DF, what we know as Mexico City.  The nice thing about that is that the transportation is about half the price there than here in the state.  Elder Hall will be staying here with a new trainer.  We don't know who it will be, or who I'll be with, but I'll let you know as soon as I can.  I must admit that this one came as a bit of a surprise.  Generally speaking, trainers stay three months with there companions.  Still, the Lord knows better than us, so I just trust that this is for the best.

Other than that, this was a pretty good week.  The rain let up a little bit this week and let us do a bit more work, which helped a lot.  One of the most interesting days was definitely Friday.  To explain why though, I have to explain a little bit of what happened the day before.  We were on our way to an appointment on Thursday when we got a text message from the zone leaders saying that President Crickmore was going to be working with us for a couple of hours on Friday.  (No pressure.)  So, needless to say I was a little bit worried about how that was going to work out.  He came with us after we ate, so everything was pretty much normal in the morning.  We couldn't really find anyone in home, so we just did some contacting in the streets.  (Still not my favorite thing.  For some reason talking to random people in the streets is a bit hard for a super introvert like me.  But it has gotten easier now that I speak Spanish.)  Then we went to eat.  A kind of hard part of this area is that we pretty much always eat far away from our area, but this time it helped since we ate closer to the chaple where we were going to meet up with President.  So, we ate than went to the chaple, and after a little wait he got there.  Since our area is about a 45 minute walk from the chaple, and was only able to come with us a couple of hours, we decided to go in his car.  (Oh, and I've hardly set foot in a car for about a year now.)  On the way to our area we got talking, and he asked us if we had had any problems in our area, in particular if we had been robbed.  (We haven't been.)  We said we hadn't and he said, "But you have been robbed in your mission, right Elder Long?"  (I haven't.  I'm just putting these here so you know that I wasn't just saying that to him.)  I told him that I hadn't, and he said, "Well, today might be your lucky day.  They might see me and say, 'That guy's got money.'"  (Spoiler alert:  we didn't get robbed.)  So, with that vote of confidence, we went to work.  The first person we went to see, a contact, wasn't there, but the next one, also a contact, was.  We had a quick lesson with him since he didn't have too much time.  Then we went to see a part member family who recently moved to the ward.  The son is an RM, and happened to have been the Elder who taught one of the sister missionaries who served in our mission.  So he and President Crickmore got to talking for awhile.  After that we went to another contact who wasn't there, then he had to leave.  All in all it was actually a pretty good experience to work with President for a day.  After he left we worked a little bit more, which intitled pushing a car a few blocks, and teaching another lesson with a family that we have been visiting.  All in all it was a good day.

That's about it for me this week.  I hope you guys have fun in Idaho.  Oh, and ¡yay for summer!  OK, I love you, and I'll write you next week from who knows where.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long

Ward Activity

Hola,

Well, here we are, another week gone.  Things have been just about the same here this week.  We keep working hard, and slowly but surely we are seeing the fruits here.  But I feel like I don't have too much news to report this week.

As far as what's new, I really don't have too much.  We had a ward activity on missionary work yesterday.  I didn't have too high of hopes as far as turn out since, because of stake conference last week, it didn't get anounced until the day of.  Still, we had a surprisingly high turn out, about 35 more or less.  Although about two thirds of them were primary kids, and the other third ward leaders.  Still, the activity went pretty good I feel.  Since there are three companionships in the ward, we decided to devide everyone into three groups.  We each chose a topic to talk about, and cycled the three groups through.  Elder Hall and I talked about the message of the restoration.  (Yeah, I'm losing my English.  I just had to look up how to spell restoration.  (Hint:  It's not restauration.))  We were supposed to take 15 minutes, meaning 45 minutes all in all for that part.  But it ended up taking about an hour and a half.  (Believe it or not, that was not my fault.)  So we ended up finishing about 9:00 at night.  Still, it got everybody a bit more excited about sharing the gospel, especially the primary kids.  (Still don't know English.  Excited, not exited.)  So, all in all I feel it was a success.  I just hope we can give the members a bit more of a warning the next time around.

Other than that, things are about the same here.  The elections are coming up here on Sunday, so all the political parties are out trying to get everyone to vote for them.  This can actually get pretty annoying, because pretty much all of them have edited a popular song of some sort so that it talks about them, then they drive around cars, or semis, with speakers blasting it on repeat at full volume.  (Yeah, it's a different world here.)  So, I'm looking forward to all of that being over next week. 

Well, sorry it's a bit of a short one.  It sounds like everything is going pretty good there at home.  (Yay for one more week of school.)  OK, I love you and I'll talk to you next week.

Love,

Elder Samuel Long