November 22, 2010

awwwwwwwwwwwwww yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wasssssssssup family?!?!?!?! some cool stuff happened this week but i wrote it all down on a notepad and right now the notepad is buried in my suitcase because im GETTING CHANGED!!!! :OOOOOOOO im writing from the offices right now. im going back to zamora-the same exact ward and area where i started my mission. crazy huh? im gonna go there and be a zone leader! i got a paper of the zone and im one of the youngest missionaries in the zone and i have NO IDEA WHAT IM DOING but oh well i´ll figure it out i guess :/ this week i was with elder rodriguez, the leetle guy from american fork that played soccer with me. it was such a fun week. hes so hilarious. i just showed him around the area and went around and met all the investigators and members and stuff. ive known about the changes for almost 2 weeks but i couldnt say anything to anyone so i was taking pictures with members and stuff and they are like ´whats going on are you leaving or something?´ haha. on monday we had a family home evening with this white lady named SALLY JOE and it was soooo sweet! ive never taught a full lesson in english and it was sooooo hard at first but after a few minutes i got used to it and it was sweet. elder rodriguez speaks english and spanish perfectly and his mom is actually from guadalajara so he has tons of family here. in our lesson with SALLY JOE she was talking to us about how mormons just look happier than other people. we gave her a scripture to read in doctrine and covenants about the light of Christ and she seriously read the first 2 words of the scripture and she started crying so hard she couldnt even finish reading the scripture. she was like 'i dont know whats happening to me i feel so WEIRD but in a good way' haha it was way cool. it was one of the most spiritual lessons of my whole mission! it was way sweet. i wish i was gonna still be in chapala to see what happens with her but OH WELL. my new comps name is elder armstrong and everyone has told me that hes way cool. im here at the offices and there are alot of my FRIENDS here that i havent seen for so long. its been way fun talking to them cuz some of them i havent seen since the mtc. i cant write too much cuz theres this training for the zone leaders that are here that i have to go to. im trying to remember what else happened this week.......UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...oh yeah! today i sent something to you guys and for brooke in the MAIL! HOYEAH! its nothing too big but it was kinda expensive to send :/ but its cool! and dont open it until christmas or ELSE! and i sent it through fed ex so watch for it! i better go but i love you guys tons and hope you have a way good thanksgiving! write me tons this week and i´ll have some stories ready next week from zamora! LAYTUH! LUV U GUYZ! :P LOL!

November 8, 2010

OH. HI FAMILY. its me YOURRRR SON THATS IN MEXICO. first off chapala is soooooooooooooo sweeeeeeeeeeeet WE HAVE TO COME HERE. we have started contacting people on the boardwalk at night time cuz there are a lot of people and its sooo sweet. there are tons of just leetle boats floating out in the water (i have no idea why or how but everyone just leaves their boats abandoned out in the water) and there are piers and waves and palm trees. anyway so we go out on the boardwalk and piers and contact people at night. on tuesday it was dia de los muertos here. its kinda like a mexican halloween. its something that mayan people started wayyyyyyyy long ago and over the years i guess its just turned into something way huge. this is what they do. on dia de los muertos they build shrines of their
loved ones that have passed away, with candles and fountains and statues and pictures and crosses and virgens and just everything that the family member loved. the goal is to make the biggest and coolest shrine and you display it outside your house or out in the plaza. so thats the first part. the second part is that then they go to the persons grave and clean it and put flowers and stuff on it, then they BUY THE DEAD PERSON FOOD AND PUT FOOD ON THE GRAVE FOR THE DEAD PERSON TO EAT AND THEN THEY LEAVE. some people really think that the dead people eat the food so they leave all their favorite food here, and then i guess in the night homeless people just go to the graveyard and have a huge feast! but its kinda cool to see how much they love their families and people that have died. its such a big deal and they spend sooo much money buying dead people food and shrines and stuff like that. something that me and my comp have started doing is on the busses whenever we go somewhere one person gets up in the front of the bus and one person in the back and we make an announcement to everyone about how we're missionaries and what we're doing and say our testimonies. then we go person by person to see if anyone is interested. so we started doing that, then the other day we get on the bus and there was this guy on there singing with a guitar. it doesnt sound that bad, but he sings love songs and at first he sings like enrique englesias, then all of a sudden he goes SOOO LOW like will farrell when he has voice immodulation hahaha! then the other day we get on the bus and we are about to make our announcement and 2 CLOWNS get on the bus and do OUR EXACT IDEA. one goes to the front, the other one to the back, and they do like a monologue thing. they just wear normal clothes and just paint their faces hahaha last week when i bought MY SWEET NEW FAKE ROLEX i talked to the guy who sold it to me and we went and taught him this week! hes cool and his name is hector. we are teaching this other guy named luis
that we met on the boardwalk the other night. hes cool too hes like 20 or 21 and he used to be pretty CHOLO but hes trying to change and stop robbing so much. he has way bad kidneys i guess and cant be away from his house for more than 4 hours cuz he has to do dialisis all the time. i feel bad for him. AND THEN I HAD THE MOST MANLY WEEKEND EVER. listen to this. the family vazquez, well the dad armando asked if we could help him work on the MOTOR OF HIS TRUCK so of course we said yes, as if we had any idea what we were doing. so we get there and he invited us cuz the manual he had about his CARBURATEUR was in english hahahahha. so im reading these instructions and its like `make sure that the valves attached to the nozzle of the pumps are securely fastened to the bolts of the piston valve hoses...rotary....gurder...` hahah and hes like `k so what do we need to do?` hahahhahaha he wanted me to translate words that i didnt even know in english hahahaha i was like `well according to the drawing here...` hahahhaha but we got his truck working and now i know how a FUEL PUMP WORKS! how manly right? so just when i think my MANLY WEEKEND is over, yesterday after church we went with the family aguilera to their ranch to eat again where we went last week and the chickens ate our food. so we get there and guess what we did? WE CHOPPED WOOD TO MAKE A FIRE TO GRILL HAMBURGERS. i feel like the biggest man ever. the hamburgers were sooo good though for real and now i know how to GRILL STUFF. hahah i had my plate in my lap again yesterday and a chicken JUMPED UP ONTO MY PLATE AND STARTED PECKING MY FOOD hahahhaha i love going out to that ranch. the animals are so hilarious. i love you guys tons! thanks for all you do for me and i miss you tons! AND STAY OUT OF MY ROOM MANDY! just kidding thats fine. just dont let fake baby poop in there. that is sooo sweet that its a girl. there is tons of stuff here that i see that i wanna buy it like sweet mexican dresses and leetle shoes and stuff. write me lots this week! thanks for all you do for me! love you guys tons! and next time i write you ill have DIEZ MESES! whaaa???? byebye bye

November 1, 2010

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ITS A GIRL?!?!! i know that maria guadaloupe de la cruz velazquez hyer is an april fools joke so quit! ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh THAT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEIRRRRRRRRRRRD TO ME! you guys are seriously gonna have to convince me that this is real. LIKE WHEN WE TALK ON THE PHONE IN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS! hoyeah. holidays are weird away from home! its cool to see how they do stuff here but we dont really celebrate or doing anything. we just keep working like its a normal day. i guess in only some parts of mexico they celebrate halloween and here in chapala they celebrated it. all the kids dress up like in the states and walk around with bags and yell `QUEREMOS HALLOWEEN` and people give them candy, all the teenagers drive around and throw eggs at people, and> all the adults get drunk. last night was pretty crazy. chapala was all decorated with skeletons and banners and stuff though, so that was cool. oh and before i forget DAD YES THAT IS OUR APARTMENT! how did you find that?! hahaha thats hilarious.
So we are trying to get this less active family back to church named the familia vazquez and they are soooo cool they are one of my favorite families ive met on my mission and they have this 11 year old girl that turned 12 on friday. we wanted to get her something for her b day so we stopped at this store on the way to her house and it was sooo hard shopping for her cuz i have no clue what to buy a 12 year old girl cuz they dont like barbies but not really like women stuff either so i looked in the boys section and ya know the claw grabber things that have grippers at the end to reach stuff? there was one of those but it was A HAND hahhahaha it was soooo hilarious so we bought that for her and wrapped it up. my comp was so hilarious hes like `we thought...you might like...this arm...` hahahahhaha but we went over to their house and surprised her with it and she was sooo happy! it was one of my favorite things of my whole mission! and im not reallly sure why. all that she got for her birthday was a hamburger that her older sisters boyfriend bought her cuz her family doesnt really have any money. she kept bugging her mom and rubbing the hand in her hair and messing it up and then we ate cake together. that family is way cool i want you guys to meet them...some...time... :/ then on saturday we went to this leetle old ladys house to eat and she reminds me tons of a mexican grandma watson. her body shape and how she talks and she even has a black lab. and its named `black` hahahahahhaa anyways so we ate chicken and rice with her and she gave me a glass to fill up with a pitcher of juice and in the bottom of the glass was like a centimeter of dirty water. i couldnt really just dump out the dirty water right in front of her so i just filled it up with juice and tried to drink as fast as i could and not think about it. so i thought that was the worst part cuz the food was ok and nothing crazy happened. i feel soooo bad for her cuz her house is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo sad and sooooo dirty and then she told us that she had dessert for us which was sooo nice cuz a lot of times> even the rich people dont give us dessert so you know it was a> sacrifice for her to do it. so she gives us each a bowl of jello that she had made. i started eating it and there was chunks of something in the jello, so i asked her if it was fruit or something and she said `no....` hahaha so i just didnt ask anymore questions. so we thanked her for the food and shared a scripture and left. then yesterday we ate at this farm with this family and we ate> outside and they have SOO MANY CHICKENS and there wasnt room on the table so i was eating with my food on my lap and a chicken came in between my legs and started eating the food off my plate hahahah and my comp went to the bathroom and while he was gone a chicken jumped up and just started eating off of his plate. nobody said anything so i didn't either. :/
well, i also want to let you know that i have a testimony and that i dont just eat jello all day. ive learned a ton on my mission and im not even half way done yet. something that ive learned a ton about is seriously how blessed we are. i think thats what being in this area has taught me cuz there are nice americans houses, then we go to a mexicans house just on the other side of the hill and its soooooooooo sad. theres a part of town here called `cartonlandia` because all of the houses are made of cardboard or scrap pieces of metal or plastic and ive never ever seen anything like it. i dont think i`ll ever be able to understand how people can live like how they do here. but they do it and they are SO HAPPY! the people that live in the cardboard shacks are wayyy happier than the old americans that live in their mansions. they play soccer outside in the dirt alleys that pass through the leetle town and its never ever with a good soccer ball. its always like deflated or an old boot or something but they are so happy and just love talking to people and being around one another. they are also the most generous people too. they wanna give you whatever they have even though they dont have anything. when i was in morelia i was about to finish the book of mormon in spanish but for some reason i felt like i should wait, so i waited and just studied other stuff but then the other week i was kinda bummed cuz i missed baptizing people and teaching people that had never heard the gospel before. allllll of our focus has been on less active people. so i decided to finish the book of mormon to see if it would make me feel better. i finished reading the last couple pages that i had left in morelia and i prayed. i was so happy after i had done that! my comp and i finished studying and left the house and went to work, and it was one of the happiest days of my whole mission. i miss you guys tons and think about you a lot, but i know i don't want to be be anywhere else in the world right now besides getting crappy haircuts and sharing food with chickens :/ i started reading the book of mormon in spanish again and im about half way through. doing that and then going to peoples houses and sharing it with them has been soooo cool. but i just want you guys to know that i know im not wasting my time and that i havent regretted one time coming on a mission! thanks for all you guys do for me and for writing every week! this week my fake oakley watched stopped working so today i bought a new fake ROLEX! hoyeah! anyways love you guys tons and talk to ya LAYTA!

October 25, 2010

heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeello. mi famirayyy! how are you guys?? things in chapala are good. the computer im on is sooooooo horrible and keeps freezing so i gotta hurry through this while its working!!!! hahahhaah k so last week after we wrote we both needed haircuts and there was this old inactive lady that we visisted during the week and she said that she cut hair for a living and that business was kinda slow, so we decided to walk up to her house to have her cut our hair. i had a feeling it was a bad idea cuz shes so OLD and i was just unsure about the whole thing hahah but we wanted to help her out so we got up to her house and her ´salon´ is just what used to be her garage but they hung up a bunch of mirrors so now she calls it a salon hahahah anyway, so my comp didnt wanna go first and i didnt wanna make it awkward for her and let her know how unsure we were about the haircuts so i went first and sat down and told her how i wanted it but told her to do it a little bit longer than i usually do just incase something crazy happened and i had to go somewhere to fix it. so i tell her and shes like `ok sounds good!` and she puts on these HUGE glasses and shes like `if ya want a good haircut i better put these on!` hahahha i was like ohhhh no! so she puts the the piece on the clippers and right when she touched it to my head i could tell that she was buzzing it alllll off hahahhahaha i could see my comp sitting behind me in the reflexion of the mirror and he just had his hands covering his mouth and you could tell bad things were happening hahh so i just tried to talk to her and not think about what was happening, so she pretty much buzzed my whole head and then she gets to my bangs and BARELY EVEN CLIPS OFF THE ENDS hahahhhhah shes like `kids these days like to leave the bangs long and everything else short` so my whole head is shaved except for my bangs and they are the same length as before and shes like `so how does it look?!` hahahah i was like `so great! think you could...take some of the bangs off before i leave though?` so she cut a little bit more off then greased it with this nasty gel she had and then i decided i would just fix whatever i needed to at home hahahah i looked so ridiculous. so then my comp sits down and he looked so scared hahahah and hes like `i want mine a little bit longer than his` and shes like ok sounds good! and then she cut the sides exactly how she cut mine but left the top wayyy long hahahhhahahahah he looked way weird too! anyway, so we left and when we got home that night i just took some scissors and stuck my bangs up and cut the rest of them off. my sideburns are SOOO UNEVEN hahhahha she left one and then cut the other one like to the top of my ear! i look like a clown but its been a week and it has grown out and isnt so bad anymore. so we called that lady that published all the antimormon stuff and we talked on the radio on thursday! we just went through and read the article and told all the things she wrote in it that arent true and what we really believe! i said hi to you guys if you were listening! ahhhhhh i gotta say before i forget! i think the baby is a.....BOY. ahhhh i cant wait to find out! but. i got thinking about it. i know how mandy loves april fools. so im thinking this whole thing is a big joke so that when april comes and shes `due` you guys are gonna tell me the truth so i think the fake baby is a boy :) mom thats so hilarious that you went to that dinner with those guys! elder aguilar and sargent are my favorite missionaries from my generation and elder dial is cool too. he was in morelia a couple months before me and then i got to know him cuz he worked as a secretary for a while. elder nichols is cool too he was the assistant and then went home but i liked him! its weird to see pictures of him in normal clothes. elder moberg is way cool too! hes an asistant right now. yesterday 15 minutes before church started we were walking out the door and the bishop called us and said that the 2 people who were gonna give talks in spanish couldnt come and he needed us to take the time in sacrament meeting and speak, but in spanish, so we got to church and i went first and spoke again! ahha i was like `heyyy... again.. everybody` hahah! i was like ' i´d like to talk about Christ today', so it was pretty easy to take up the time. oh dad! yeah your emails work just fine and they are cool with the pictures up at the top! and the address of our house is hidalgo 269 in chapala. its a white three story building. k this computer is awful so i gotta go but love you guys tons! write me lots and let me know what your gonna name the fake baby! love you guys HASTAAAAAAA LUNNNESSSSS CUATE!

October 11, 2010

herro me famirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDDD . k. sorrrry for not writing last week we had to go to guadalajara for pday to get some more stuff from the offices that we needed to get things started here in chapala. we got there and spent all pday MAKIN COPIES of stuff and getting all the stuff we didnt have. i still bought a tie though :O ummm so yeah we didnt have anytime to do anything else then that night we got back here to chapala at about 1030 and i was soooo exhausted. we took a taxi from the bus station to our house and we always talk to the taxi drivers about the gospel and the things i was saying didnt make any sense i was like ´so...you believe in God?....` hahaha this week was way crazy too though i dont think ive ever been so tired in my life. we leave early and get home late and then sleeping is the best thing. this town is hilarious. its like 30% white OLD people and they dont speak any spanish so on busses and stuff they just yell ´I WANNA GET OFF!´ hahahahhaha they are all way ornery it seems like and always wear hawaiian flower shirts and stuff like real retired people hahahaha its so funny. theres this couple named jim and joan REED and he is soooooo ornery and mean and shes the sweetest old lady ever hahaaha they had us over at their house this week for lunch and we got there and the lady was like ´IM SOO SORRY I FORGOT THE POTATOES!´ and jim´s like ´DAG NABBIT JOAN you ALWAYS do this!´ hahahahhaha me and my comp were just trying to make her feel better and my comp has to try to speak english its sooo funny hes like ´eets okay seester reed...´ hahahahhaha ohhh i wish someone was here to see what i live every day! hahaha one day this week my comp got sick at about 730 at night so we went back to the house and he got in bed and i finally just had time to sit and think. it felt soooo good i didnt sleep or anything i just sat in a chair for ever and just let my brain stop for a leetle. so i guess the sunday before we got here only 11 people came to church and you should see the church its so leetle so anwyays me and my comp worked and went with as many people as we could and talked to soooo many people and yesterday there were 50 people at church! it was way cool. it was testimony day and people kept saying in their testimonies how happy they were to have missionaries here haha it made me happy so that was cool. so on saturday we decided to dedicate the area and we wanted to do it on top of this mountain that over looks all of chapala and the lake and stuff and its kinda by our house so we looked around for a little bit for a trail and never saw one, so we decided to just start hiking which was the worst idea EVER hahhahahaha it was seriously like a jungle. ya know how in the movies theres the long vines that hang down and they cut them with machetes? those really exist and it really would have been nice to have something to cut them with haha so it was soooo thick with trees and weird animal sounds and soo humid, and as we got closer to the top it was getting steeper and steeper and i seriously didnt know if we were gonna get to the top but we finally did and my comp was sweating so bad hahah we got to the top and hes like `are you keeding me?` hahahaha but when we got up there the view was SOOOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOL ohhhh my heck we took some pictures then said a prayer to dedicate the area. we looked around up there for an easier way down cuz there was NO WAY we could get back down the way we got up and sure enough there was this nice leetle trail and some parts even had STAIRS hahhahahahahahhahahaha like remember the movie almost heroes when chris farley goes through all that to get to the beach and there was a little path the whole time? it was EXACTLY like that haha but when we come back here we have to hike up to the top cuz its so cool ill try to send some pictures really quick. its been weird eating with the members here cuz they are either way rich white people that take us to restaurants or have us eat at their house with all their way nice dishes and stuff, or we eat in little concrete huts with the mexicans and something the mexicans do here that they didnt in morelia is they dont use utensils its so weird but its kinda fun to me now. like saturday we ate with a mexican family and we had chicken (i think :/ ) and beans and rice and no utensils at all haha so you just pick everything up with your fingers haha i kinda like it better. anyways thanks for all you guys do!!!....love you guys tons and miss you lots! write me this week and i´ll seeeeee yaaa layyyyturrrr!

September 30, 2010

herrrrrrrrrrrrrro familrrrrrrrryyyyyyy!!!!! ha k i have lots of things to EXPLAIN. hahah ok so last week on sunday me and my comp get home from working and we are getting dates together and everything and we talk to the zone leaders at like 11 and they said that president was sending me to open up a new area called chapala. no body knew really where it was or what it was like so we got asking and its like 45 minutes south of guadalajara. they said that i had to pack and be at the bus station at 830 monday morning. so i got all my stuff packed and i have so much crap! ayways it was way sad cuz me and elder smith got along way good and i loved our ward and just everything. jose luis came over and helped me pack until about midnight then he went home. in the morning tomás came over to say bye and it was so sad hahah i didnt really know how attached i was to these guys haha anyways so jose luis drove me to the bus station and then my new comp got there named elder GONGORA from cancun. hes...coooooool.....hahahha :/ hes big and round and has about a year in the mission. from there i had to say bye to elder smith and that was sad but we rode on the bus to guadalajara and got to the offices and just ended up hanging out there all night cuz president wanted to explain stuff to us but couldnt until tuesday, so we spent the night at the offices then in the morning we got ready and the president came. he took us into his office and talked to us about chapala. he said that the ward here speaks ENGLISH and that makes it so that the mexicans dont wanna go to church so there are tons and tons of inactive mexicans and only like 25 people that go to church in total, so we have to go to the inactive mexicans houses and get them to come back to church and as soon as we have a big enough ward they are going to split it into 2 branches-one english speaking and one spanish speaking. he looked at us before we left and he´s like ´this assignment is the most important thing thats happening in our mission right now. dont let me or the lord down.´ hahahhahahahahahahahahahhahha i was like ´ughm. k.´ so the secretaries drove us in the van the 45 minutes from the offices to chapala. we were on the way there and there was a part where you drive over a hill and you can see all of chapala and it felt like something on a movie hahah its the prettiest place ive ever been in my whole life i think. the town is built on the banks of this HUGE lake and then the town is surrounded by these HUGE mountains that are soooooo GREEN they are covered in those rain forest type trees and they are soooo cool. when they bought our apartment they thought that there was gonna be 4 missionaries, but its just me and my comp so we have this huge apartment thats sooo sweet all to ourselves haha its so cool and it overlooks the lake. its so sweet here we HAVE to come back and visit i just wanna go swimming in the lake or just go to the beach or something cuz theres all these piers and the whole town is covered in palm trees and stuff. the reason that the ward speaks english is cuz a lot of old people move here to retire so all the members are either inactive mexicans or 90 year old white people hahahhhah when we got here we put all our stuff in the apartment then went to the church (which is the size of the gym of our church) and met the bishop. hes this 85 year old white guy named DON WYVELL hahahhaahhahahahhahhh ohhhh my gosh me and my comp have been so weirded out hahah so we talked to him for a while on tuesday and got some ward lists printed out but everything here is such a mess. its been hard cuz neither one of us knows where we are and our house is way dirty and has nothing so we had to get all moved in and today we cleaned all morning, and we had to buy a bunch of stuff that all the houses need and its just been a way long process. yesterday we set up an appointment with this lady named sister EDNA hahha so we went to her house and shes this 88 year old white lady that lives in this gated community and its soooo nice hahahah oh my gosh im moving here. so we talked to her then she invited us to ´supper´ hahahah so we went with her and 2 of her mexican friends that she invited and we went and ate at this outdoor restaurant that was sooo good oh my gosh. it was so funny cuz they all 3 were so old and the mexicans dont speak english and she doesnt speak spanish so they just yell back and forth in their native language trying to get their sentence across hhaha ohh my gosh its so funny. so she bought us hamburgers there and i seriously am so bad at speaking english i feel like this biggest idiot hahahah she was asking me about the family and about the mission and i wasnt making any sence im gonna be so dumb when i get home. me and my comp have been working way hard im exhausted just cuz theres so much stuff to do. last night we were up late trying to get these ward lists figured out and where people live and trying to get to know everyone and get the house set up but at the same time trying to find new people to teach and baptize its been stressful but its been good. anyways so thats whats going on with me hahah my comp is freaking out cuz we go places and 3/4 are white people speaking english hahahahha it really is so weird. its way cool here though you guys have to look it up on google or google earth or something cuz it seriously looks like a place out of a magazine. i havent really been able to take very many pictures cuz we´ve been way busy but i´ll try to take some more before i write again on monday. wish you could be here in paradise with me but....love you guys tons and look up chapala! your gonna die hahah love you guys BYEBYEBYEB!

September 20, 2010

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it feels like this computer is my best friend cuz i use the same one everyweek. it was the 200th anniversary of mexicos independence on i think the 16th. its hard to really know cuz they do all the celebrating on the 15th. on the 15th we had a huge party in our church it was soo hilarious hahah me and elder smith sang and wore those fake moustaches. there were all these people singing and we did the ´grito´ its way cool its when everyone yells ´VIVA MEXICO! VIVA MEXICO!´ hhaha its hard to explain but everyone just screams its way cool. after that they had food and dessert and drinks and stuff it was funny. i was gonna tell you guys last week but i decided not to until independence day had passed, but i guess that on the 15th of september is when people here like to KILL white people hahaha but...kinda for reals hahahahahah and every year all the people go to the cathedral in centro and celebrate until midnight and there are thousands and thousands of people there and i guess last year someone through grenades into the crowd and a bunch of people died :/ we had to stop working early on the 15th. haha but im still alive so thats good. right now we are just looking for new people to teach mostly. we found some more new people this week that are kinda cool. we talked to this girl named estefanie a couple months ago, then when we went by her house she wasnt there, so we thought she just didnt wanna talk so we havent gone back to her house, but this week we went to the house of that family that got deported and those guys werent home, and when we turned to walk away we saw that estefanie girl walk into her house across the street. we decided to go over there and talk to her so we went and knocked on the door and she opened up and we talked for a while. shes like twenty so we started asking who else lives there with her and she said that she used to live there with her mom and dad, but then they got divorced, then about 2 months ago her mom went to have a surgery and something went wrong and she ended up dying. she said thats why she invited us over the last time cuz she wanted to know more about God and stuff it was so sad so we got talking and we´ve visited her a few times this week. she just lives there with her little sister thats like 18 its way sad but we´re teaching her.... anywayyyys oh yeahh hahahhahahah k so yesterday we were walking to church in the morning and we walked over there with that homeless guy pepe cuz he always just walks and talks with us, so we keep walking and he always just leaves us at the gates of the church but never wants to come in, so yesterday i asked him to tell me a story and he was just talking and talking and i dont think that he realized it, but we walked into the church and sat down in sacrament meeting hahahaha he finished his story and then we were just in there and it started, and he stayed for the whole thing hahah he smells bad :/ but he didnt yell or anything he just sat by me all calm the whole time. he started taking off his jacket and he wasnt wearing anything underneath so i had to stop that, but other than that he was good! he left right after sacrament meeting and went and layed down out in the street again, but that was kind of a cool thing that happened haha i love pepe. my comp is going to guadalajara today for some conference things and im staying here again with elder DOGOOD hahaha and his new comp elder glazier. oh yeah! the gomez family got baptized yesterday! it was way cool. all 5 of them got baptized. the coolest part was that we invited other hermanos to baptize with us, so hermano navarro baptized the dad, tomás baptized the mom, my comp batized the daughter, i baptized the son and the bishop baptized the littlest girl. it was way cool. after that we had to empty the pila with buckets agian so that part wasnt way cool, but it was way cool seeing a whole family get baptized like that again. i think thats....ALLLL...write me tons this week and have fun. love you guys tons! byebeybyebyebye

September 13, 2010

herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrro my fammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmiry!!! this week we worked with that same gomez family getting them ready for their baptisms this sunday coming up. so you guys remember ruth? the lady that got baptized a couple months ago and has had some DEMON problems in her house? anyways so this week she called us one night and asked if we could go over there to her house, so we go over there and are talking to her outside her house for a little and says that shes been having more demon problems. she said that its only in her bedroom, but that the night before she got woken up and could hear a guy and a lady laughing and saying that they hated her and all these swear words and stuff so she prayed and it all got better, but that weird stuff like thats been happening lately. so we cant go into houses if theres not a man there, so we called an hermano and had him come over so we could go in. so we talked for her for a second downstairs in her living room and she told us some more weird stuff thats been happening, then we went up into her bedroom to give her a blessing and to bless her bedroom. it felt soo weird in there. we had her sit down on her bed and we gave her a blessing, then we all kneeled down and the hermano blessed her bedroom and said for all the evil spirits to leave. i was just looking around during like ´is this really happening?´ hahaha but anyways that was something different that happened this week i guess hahah but what else...oh yeah on saturday we had this address of a lady we contacted in the street so we went to her house to visit her and shes like ´hey im glad you guys came i want you to meet my son´ so he comes to the door and its this drunk kid that speaks english and always yells swear words at us in the street hahah so he comes to the door and hes like ´ohh...hey...´ hahah so we went inside and it was actually a way sad story cuz they had gone to the united states like 17 years ago but illegally. the kid is my age that always yells swear words, and he has a 13 year old brother that was born in california. so they start talking to us and i guess that the kid thats my age got into trouble there with the law and they found out that their family was there illegally and they ALL got deported back to mexico. the dad and mom both lost their jobs and had to come back. the kid thats 13 was born there so speaks english perfectly but doesnt understand ANYTHING of spanish and is way frustrated and has to go to spanish schools but doesnt understand anything, so in the lesson we had to speak in spanish, then translate everything for him into english. it was kinda cool cuz it was way harder for me to explain stuff in english than it is in spanish haha one time i explained something in spanish then looked at him to tell him in english and i had NO IDEA what to say hahah it took like twice as long. anyways that was just a way sad thing that happened cuz they said they were way happy in the states then all cuz that kid got into trouble the whole family got deported. oh yeah and another depressing story! ready? k so yesterday at church the CASE family didnt come, so the bishop told me he felt like we needed to go visit them. so he took me and we did divisions and elder smith stayed at church. so during sunday school me and the bishop drove to the case´s house and knocked on the door and no one answered, so we got back in the car and on the way back to the church we passed mirella and saraid´s house, who got baptized about a month ago. they hadnt come to church either, so the bishop pulled over and we went to go visit them. we knocked on the door and mirella, the mom opened the door. she looked SOOOOO BAD she had this huge black eye and her face was all cut up and her lip was all swolled and about the whole right side of her face was bruised she looked wayyy bad and its sad cuz shes like 60 and OLD, so we went inside and got talking to her and she said that the night before she was walking home from work and it was dark and she tripped and fell and landed right on her face and went to the hospital and her head is cracked and all this stuff, and that if she starts feeling nausious she could die and all this crazy stuff, so the bishop told her we could give her a blessing and she was crying way hard and said yeah and that she had been praying to feel better, so me and the bishop gave her a blessing and she was crying so hard and thanked us so much. so we left the house and we got back in the bishops car and we started driving and hes like ´you see why we needed to leave church today?´ it was way sad but it was cool to be there to help her out and talk to her and stuff. we went and visited her after church and she said that she felt so much better and she looked way better too. i think i always write way sad things hahahhaha ummm oh yeah! I HAVE 8 MONTHS TODAY! HA! mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. we´re finding cool new people to start teaching....oh! i wanna buy a turtle way bad! theres this place in our area and they sell these LEETLE turtles hahaha they are sooo sweet! and they´re only like 35 pesos! i think thats about it! i finally got my hair cut last week so that was good....i think thats about all! thanks for writing me and being my PEOPLE! love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

September 6, 2010

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii my leeeetle fammmilyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im in MEXICO. hey! i remembered the leelte paper thing to write to you guys so i have some stuff this week! sorry last week was kinda lame. except for the baptizms! haha BUT. k remember the guy eduardo thats cool that got baptized this week? he hasnt been going to school this week and we asked why and he said that its cuz it got taken hostage haha we were surprised and stuff and he told us that it happens at about this time every year. its a UNIVERSITY and someone takes it hostage every single year hahaha its kinda turning into a normal thing i guess and people leave on vacations and stuff cuz they shut the school down for like a month. what else....oh yeah, so theres tons of fake stuff here but they use the same logo, like nike and rolex and all of that but its pretty crappy quality but it looks pretty much the same, anyways this guy elder lopez in our zone has shoes that are ´dr. martinez´ hahahahha like dr. martens? hahahaha i thought that was pretty funny but no one else really did hahah oh well. oh and dad! i never really answered your question about bistek haha yeah we eat that all the time here. did you try it?? i like it a ton. it just tastes like stake, but its like paper thin. i think mom would love it hahah actually mom i think you would like all the food here. they dont put too much meat on the tacos and they are always spicy. i think im ruining my stomach haha i eat spicy food every day and i guess that gastritis (its the same in english right?) is way common here for that :/ And theres lots of dead dogs here. hahaha and they are all so nasty looking and no one cleans them up. The other night our buddy tomás took us out for tacos and he bought us tacos de buche, and if i understood right, its pigs entestines hahah but they were way good. Right now we are looking for new people to teach cuz pretty much everyone that we´ve got right now isnt really progressing or has gotten baptized, so we contacted ANOTHER GUY that owns a popsicle store and hes COOL again! ahhaha we get so much free ice cream here i love it and its homemade and way good. yesterday we set a fecha with another family of 5. theyre name is the familia gomez and their way cool. we set the fecha for the 19th. We worked way hard in july and our zone baptized 9 people and 5 of them were ours! again we worked way hard in august and our zone baptized 15 and 6 of them were ours so the work is good and that was cool! we played soccer today in that indoor place with our zone it was fun. ashley´s cuñado, jose luis and his dad came and so did eduardo it was way fun. well i love you guys tons and miss you lots! oh yeah! and yesterday the case family and eduardo all got confirmed and it was cool cuz we asked hermanos of the ward that had never done a confirmation to do it and they were way excited cuz they might have never been able to do somthing like that. anyways the hermano that confirmed eduardo blessed him to be able to go on a mission one day, but i dont think he knew that eduardo´s 26 and has an 8 year old daughter :/ hahha but oh well. love you guys tons and write me NOW! bye bye bye byebeyebeyebeye

August 2, 2010

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYY FAMMMMMMMMMMIRRRRRAYYYYYYYYY! HIGHHHHHHHH GUYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :////////////////////// how the crap is everybody this weeeeeeeeeeeeeeek ehhhh? ummm...........this week wasnt too exciting. and by that i mean i didnt light anyones house on fire :/ ummm what happened...... this week i was on splits cuz my comp was in guadalajara for most of the week. i was with elder DOGOOD hahahhahaha hes sooooooooooooooooo LOUD and from texas and he got here like a month ago. he is hilarious it was so funny being with him oh my heck. we just told stories to each other all week (hi brooke) it was way fun. we were together for 4 days so two days we worked in my area and 2 days we worked in his. in my area we stopped and got juice at this way good place where this old lady makes all these way good drinks by hand. hahhaha but these old ladies work there and we sat down and talked to them and now we´re buddies i´ll try to send you guys a picture of us. one of the days we were in his area we went and visited this guy named moises he lives like 45 minutes away in these way ghetto apartment complexes. we got there and right when i saw him i just felt way bad for him for some reason. elder dogood didnt really know the guy he just said that he was cool. we walked into his apartment and there was NOTHING in there it was so sad. he looked like a mexican ace ventura haha his hair was identical. but anyways we sit down and i didnt even know why but i just felt like i should tell him i was his friend hahahahhahaha i thought it was weird but i felt like i should do it so i just told him that i was his buddy and that i would come hang out with him whenever he wanted to talk to somebody and id do whatever he needed me to do to help him out and he still hadnt said a word then he just looked up at me from the couch he was on and started crying and was like ´my wife left me this week and now im here alone with our 2 kids cuz she wants to be with another guy and i dont have any kind of work and they´ve shut off our power and water. we probably cant stay here for very much longer cuz we cant afford it, and now i found out i have cancer´ ohhhhhh my can you believe that? so i just talked to him for like an hour and just tried to make him feel better and stuff he was the nicest guy and his kids were so cool i felt so bad for them. he said the only money he has is from these little pictures of jesus that he sells for 3 pesos each. thats like 25 cents a picture isnt that crazy? after we got done talking i told him i wanted to buy 3 pictures, so i gave him a 50 peso bill and he went into the other room to get change and me and elder dogood ran out the door hahaha i felt sooooo sorry for him. so thats the depressing story of the week hahahahah ummm what else happened. oh yeah! hahahahahhahhhahaah k so this investigator that we have was telling us that a lot of taco stands here in morelia are getting shut down because they´ve been killing the dogs that wander in the streets and MAKING TACOS OUT OF THEM hahahhahahaha she said that a place got shut down just barely on this street that we´ve bought tacos at before hahahahhahahahahhahahahahaha ohhhh my gosh how sick is that? and the dogs here are SOOO NASTY hahah. oh yeah! on monday i got my 6 month package! it was at the other house where elder dogood lives! thank you guys soooooo much! the reeses melted but i put them in the fridge and theyre good now so thank you so much! for all the letters and everything! im so glad that the package i sent got home! i was nervous it would get stuck at the border or something after i spent all that money sending it. this week there was this huuuuge youth conference for the whole state of michoacan here in morelia. it was a pretty big deal i guess even the governer came haha but all the youth came and it was in this huggge theatre in downtown called teatro morelos. it was soooo cool. they put on this like 2 hour play and noooobody knew their lines hahaha there were so many awkward silences so the missionaries would just cheer way loud hahaha it was uncomfortable then the missionaries sang a song to close. we practiced it soooo much, then we got on stage to sing it and they didnt give us microphones so no one could here us anyways hahahaha i felt like i was yelling and it was stiil sooo quiet hahah i think cuz its such a huge theatre but after they took all the missionairies out to eat at mcdonalds it was soooo good. haha oh yeah yesterday at church i confirmed the same girl that i baptized last week. then after that the elders quorum president came and sat by me and hes like ´hey can you teach the lesson in priesthood today? so we get in priesthood and i see theres this guy there who LOVES to talk so i start the class and i ask him a question, and he seriously talked for the whole class. haha really for the whole thing. then we prayed and it was over hahahahha but i think thats pretty much all that happened this week! i miss you guys tons and hope your having fun with summer thats almost OVVVVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! but anyways miss and love you guys!

June 26, 2010

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh HEEEEERRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MI FAMILIA!!!!! what the crap is going on there back in YASMILLE YUMA? hahah guess what? the other day i saw a car with utah licence plates haha it was the best thing ever. i wanted to take a picture but it was raining harder than ive ever seen in my whole entire life. we were using umbrellas and i was still dripping wet there wasnt any part of me dry and all the streets turn into rivers haha we were up to our shins in water and it really does get cold! after it stopped raining we could see our breath! crazy huh? my comp got sick again after that day and now he drinks tea all the time haha mmmmmmmm what happened this week.....oh yeah hahahhahah ok last tuesday we went to ruths house to help her pull some weeds in her front yard, so we helped her do that, then shes like ´um..could you guys help me patch some holes on my roof?´ so we were like sure but all the houses here are made of concrete and all the roofs are flat with drains for the water to drain, so we went and bought concrete and i was the one that had to carry the bag of concrete up the ladder of her 3 story house hahah it was horrifying especially when i got to the top and had to take the bag of concrete off my shoulder and throw it on the roof haha so i got up there and mixed up the concrete and patched up the cracks, then she climbed up and was like ´that looks good, but maybe we should just cover the whole roof with it´ haha so i ended up putting concrete across her whole roof haha but it turned out good. so then we come back down from the roof and theres this huge pile of weeds on the side of her house, and she asked if we would help her burn them. so i started trying to light them on fire, but they were way wet cuz its been raining, so it wouldnt really light on fire, then shes like ´would it work if we bought gasoline?´ hahah i was like ´umm...i think so´ hahha so we went and bought gas and filled it up in an old juice container, and we came back to the house hahahahhahaha ohhhh this was sooo bad k so we come back to the house and we go to the pile of weeds, and i take the lid off the can of gas, and start pouring it on the pile but i guess there were still some sparks on the bottom from when i tried to light it earlier cuz the fire jumped from the weeds and started the container and my hand on fire hahahhaha it scared me way bad so i dropped the container, but when i did that all this gas splashed on the side of her house and the whole side of her HOUSE started on fire hahahhahahahahahhahahaha ahhhhhh hahahahh so her house is on fire and so is this FULL container of gas right on the side of her house, so i ran around back and filled up this bucket with water, but when i threw it on the fire it just splashed more gas and made it worse hahahhahhahhahhaha but luckily her house was made of concrete so it didnt burn down hahahhahahahhhahaha ohhhhhhh my heck if we werent in mexico that could have been suuuch a disaster hhahahhaha oh yeah! i didnt have to buy groceries last week cuz i got that package, so i bought this sweeeeet suit from this lady we´re teaching for 200 pesos or like 18 dollars hahaha how sweet is that? its seriously such a sweet suit its grey pinstriped. the ladys dad used to be a lawyer but he...died...so shes selling all his clothes haha but it looks new! it reminds me of the office when dwight is like ´this tux is my grandfathers. he was BURIED in it´ hahhaha the jacket fits way good but the pants are 36 and i need like a 32 but i think theirs a lady in our ward that does that for free. soooo that was cool. whhhhaat else. oh yeah. remember saraid the lady we baptized last week? she asked if id be her godfather? haha i have no idea what that is but i said yes :/ i dont really have any responsibility..right? we baptized yesterday too. we baptized a lady named miriam and her daughter lorena. this guy named hermano galicia baptized miriam cuz shes his sister, and i baptized lorena. all that went good, but we went to the church a couple hours early to start fillling up the font and there was the biggest spider ive ever seen dead in the font. it was soo huge with these nasty legs it was so sick. mmmm what else. oh yeah this week at the church we had an activity called trip to hawaii, where we invited everyone and told them we were going on a trip to hawaii and it was free. well our ward mission leader planned it all so we thought it would be cool,. but we get there and everyone goes into the sacrament room and all the seats are set up like a plane so we thought it was gonna be cool, and on the wall hes projecting this movie of the inside of a plane like going through all the pre flight safety stuff so if really did feel real, then the plane takes off and then we´re flying for a sec and its all peaceful, then the movie cuts to a clip of one of the planes hitting one of the twin towers on 911! what the crap? so the activity was that after that everyone that ´died´ in the plane crash had to go to the different rooms in the church to learn about heaven and stuff haha it was...weird hahaha me and my comp just kept looking at each other like ´what the crap....´ hahah especially the 911 part it was weird but after that we played volleyball in the rain and they sold all this food and had karaoke so that was fun but only a couple of investigators came to the airplane part and the rest were members so that was good hahhahha oh yeah! i sent a package home last monday! it was pretty expensive to send haha i hope it got home. the guy told me it was gonna be 1700 pesos and i was like ´wow. ok yeah i guess so´ and hes like ´are you sure?´ hahah like trying to talk me out of it cuz it was so expensive so i hope it got there! anyways thanks for all you guys do for me i hope that you have a way fun week! you guys only have a month of summer left MUA HA HAHA. but. have fun with it. gage i cant believe your old enough to go to efy that is soooooooooooooooo weird to me. do you have braces yet? oh and i saw that picture of bailey and edwin. bailey looks like shes 13! what the crap is going on? anyways i love you guys tons! thanks for writing and write me tons this week! miss you guys and love you!

July 19, 2010

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! im YELLING! FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A TI. FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A TI. FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A MAMZIES. ¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS A TI! happy b day mom!!!!!! how the crap are you guys doing! mom im sending a package today i think so you can pick something out of it for your bday! happy bday! i hope you have tonsof fun. oh and about the package...ehhh.... i think it might be kinda expensive to send... :/ hahhaha but i´ll see what happens. oh we didnt have changes! im soooo happy i really didnt wanna go anywhere i love it here. our ward is so cool and theres tons of cool people we´re teaching right now and me and elder smith get a long good. so i told you last week we went to the zoo and the elders in our district said they pay to get my face painted, so i did it haha just thinkiing i could wash it off anytime. so i get my face painted like a mouse hahahah but she put tons of red glitter on my face so this whole week ive had glitter all over me cuz the paint and stuff wouldnt come off haha ummm oh yeah! elder dogood went to guadalajara last pday to sign his visa and he brought me a package from you guys! he brought back one and it had a bunch of food like potatoes and peanutbutter and gushers and stuff! thank you SOOOO MUCH i didnt even have to buy groceries today haha oh my gushers dont exist here so i gave some so some mexicans here in our ward and our mexican zone leader and they love them sooo much hahah everyones like ´this is the best thing ive ever tasted´ haha so thanks for all that food! i ordered a new name tag too a while ago and elder dogood brought that to me too its way cool it says ´elder tibbitts watson´ haha cuz with mexican names like luis rodriguez gonzales, its because his dads name is rodriguez and his mom´s name gonzales so i made one like that haha ummm what else. i burned my tie tuesday night! i invited all my favorite people from the ward to go get tacos and it turned into a party hahaha we got in a little bit of trouble cuz there were so many people cuz after we all got tacos they came to our house to watch us burn stuff. i burned a tie, and i found out that elder smith has 15 months in his mission and has never burned ANYTHING! so i made him burn a shirt hahaha hes coming out of his shell a ton its good. hahaha then the other day we went to this big store called soriana, its kinda like wal mart, and outside there was a van and in the back a dental chair and they said they were giving free dental check ups hahha so we did it hahahahah the lady was NOT a dentist hahah shes like ´well...not of your teeth are black...so i think your good´ hahhha then that same night we were walking down the street and a vw bug was driving towards us and one of the wheels just FELL OFF hahhhhhahhhhaa like in the movies hahahahahahahahaha ohhhh my heck i seroiusly thought i was dreaming it just rolled off the car and the car just fell to the ground and stopped moving hahaha so we helped him put the wheel back on and push his car to the side of the road. ohhh ive eaten so many pb and j sandwiches thank you sooo much for the peanut butter! this week we ate with a family that loves the fresh prince of bel air and i was talking to the kids about it and they taught me the theme song in spanish haha how cool is that? ummm oh yesterday we baptized haha i forgot about that. their names were saraid and her mom mirella. i baptized saraid and my comp baptized mirella. saraid gave the closing prayer at her service and it was so cool cuz she just kept saying how grateful she was for us for finding her and all this stuff i dont know it was just cool. well thanks for everything guys and have a way good week and an awesome birthday mom! i wish i could be there! but i´ll be there for the next one when you turn 60! love you guys tons and keep writing i love your letters! hasta lunes!!!!!!!!

July 12, 2010

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh family! my friend jose luis said that he added me on facebook and that he saw a picture of us on there hahaaha thats hilarious. ummmm what else. the lady and her son we were supposed to baptize went to guadalajara for the weekend so we have to wait until this week to do it. oh yeah im at 6 months tomorrow! hoyeah. voy a quemar una corbata. we helped paint this ladys house this week that has parkinsons disease its way sad cuz her house is a disaster there are all these huge rats and cockroaches everywhere so the ward is trying to clean it up so we went there saturday to help and me my comp and 2 other guys showed up haha so me and my comp painted and they tried to re do the electricity in her house. oh but what i was gonna tell you is i wore jeans to the service thing and i havent worn them for way long and i pulled them out and tried to put them on and they wouldnt fit at all like not even close i think ive gained tons of weight....hahahhaha no just kidding they fit like normal. but i havent worn them since like the mtc so i pull the jeans out and go to put them on and theres this HUGE spider web inside hahah how sick is that and there was this giant spider just sitting in there it was so nasty. painting went good we just painted the outside of the house. all the houses here are made of concrete so painting went pretty fast. we had a zone conference this week and mom i think you said you sent stuff but i guess none of it has gotten here cuz there wasnt anything at the zone conference for me i hope that i dont get changed this monday cuz i love this area and theres stuff in those packages for members in this ward haha ummmmm what else. oh yeah hahaha every night on the way home we walk across this bridge and there isnt any like rails or anything on the sides so you can fall in the river way easy and its the sickest river ever hahah it just is sitting still and its sooo full of nasty stuff theres really a dead dog floating in it and it stinks soooo bad so the other night we were walking home and i tripped getting on the bridge and was sooooooooooooo close to falling in the river hahahahha ohhhh my i seriously would have died in there its so nasty. today for p day we went to the zoo it was way funny they have tons of cool animals here cuz i think its easier for them to get them or something cuz there were tons of animals i didnt even know existed haha but it was fun i got to hold a monkey i dont think ill have time to send pictures but they also had a tiger that you could pet but it was 50 pesos to do it so i just took pictures haha but can you believe they just let you pet tigers and stuff like that? haha i dont think they have the same rules here haha well i think we have to go cuz we had a district meeting 5 minutes ago but i love you guys tons and miss you! mom if i get transferred next monday and dont get to email you happy birthday! what are you like 60 now? haha you old LADY have a good birthday! i love and miss you guys have an awesome week!

July 5, 2010

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii fammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmily! im seriously shouting right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! i dont know if you guys have seen but the entire country of mexico is under WATER! im typing this email on the hood of a car floating down the river that used to be a street! ahhhh! ohh my last monday i went to a bbq with this guy named HENRY CASE that used to live in ogden! we passed by his house on the way to an appointment and he asked if we wanted to go in and eat with him and we said sure, and his whole family was back there. he fed us this soup with chicken that i was sure was raw, but we didnt wanna be rude cuz he really was way nice and they hardly had anything so we ate it and sure enough me and my comp were super sick after hahha oh dad! ok i looked up our direction! our street sign has a bunch of grafitti over it so i cant see what it says, but i looked on a map and it said ´av. jose ma. lino p.´ hahhahha im not sure if that helps but thats the best i could do! that soup stuff made my comp pretty sick for a few days, so he asked if i could give him a blessing so i gave him a blessing and he said i blessed him to find someone that could help him feel better, then today we were clear on the other side of our area and we felt like we should go visit the mariachi family to check how they were, and we got there and it was just the dad and his cousins and we werent really doing anything and i thought ´why did we feel like we should come over here?´ then a couple minutes later his wife got home and was like ´elder smith you dont look very good! let me make you something that will make you feel better´ and she made this weird drink with coke, lime and this corn meal stuff haha and he felt totally fine after he drank it! then shes like ´well i gotta go i´ll see you guys later!´ hahah isnt that cool? ahhhh what did you guys do for the 4th?! i havent read your emails yet cuz im gonna print them but i missed home so much yesterday! i love the fourth so much and i missed it! they dont do anything here but every once and a while we´d here like firecrackers or something go off we baptized ruth yesterday the lady that i had to cast demons out of her house so hopefully ive got times to send pictures! theres also a new missionary here that went to viewmont that went to viewmont but played soccer with chad and adam and all of them! its weird to know someone with the same friends. anyways i cant wait to read your emails! i love you guys and miss you tons! thanks for everything! when i email next week im gonna have 6 months! crazy huh! loveyou guys!

June 28, 2010

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HELLO! how in the crap are you guys DOIN?! mexico is still mexico. but seriously ive never seen an obsession like what these people have with soccer haha the world cup is seriously their lives. and EVERYBODY. even the old ladies are following it haha yesterday mexico played argentina and it was the middle of the day and in a huge city like morelia and it was EMPTY it was so cuhrazy. nobody wants to listen to anything while games are on even if its not mexico playing. oh my heck last monday in the night time we had a family home evening at a members house and we brought an investigator and her daughter cuz the family home evenings are usually way fun and stuff but this one was so awkward hahah there was a baby there and it was crying the WHOLE night and no one could really hear each other, then the guy who owned the house was like ´i have a movie we could watch´ so i was relieved cuz i thought it would be somethign good, then he put on the most AWKWARD church movie ive ever seen haha it was about the life of joseph smith and it was like 30 minutes long and it was soooooooo weird hahah like it made me feel weird and ive been a member my whole life. it showed the angels´ faces that appeared to joseph smith and it was sooooo fake and bad hahahahaha ohhh my heck it was one of the those times where you just look at the ground cuz its so uncomfortable hahaha then the movie ended and i was like ´huh. well is anyone thirsty?´ hahahhhahaha ohhh my im not sure what the investigator thought but oh well. we started teaching a new guy this week and hes a MATADOR! how sweet is that? hes absolutely crazy and doesnt really agree with anything haha but i like going to his house cuz its right outside of the bull fighting arena and he has all these trophies and old pictures of him bullfighting and awards and he has cool stories hes cool but im not sure how many more tims we´re gonna go back haha oh my k then we taught a lesson to valerias mom cuz she still wants to get baptized but shes seperated from her husband and has a boyfriend so she has to get divorced before she can get baptized, but anyways we were at her house and here sister came over and in mexico when people say hi to eachother they lean in and kiss each other on the cheek so im just sitting there on the couch and the sister walks in so i stood up and shook her hand and said hi and she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek hahahahahahhahahaahhahaha then i looked at elder smith and he was sooo shocked and she went over to him and did the same thing hahhahahahahahahaha she walked out of the room and i laughed for seriously 10 minutes hhahahahahahahahahahahaa ohhhh my heck it was so funny. the next day we went over to the ladys house who watched the awkward joseph smith movie with us. her name is ruth and shes a theres pictures of herself alll over her house and she has a little 7 year old daughter whos EXACTLY like bailey shes so funny. anyways we were in her house with her and it was super late and then she started telling us about all these crazy problems that she has in her family and how her house is haunted and her dad is a wizard and her sister in law is a witch and all this crazy stuff so she asked if there was anything we could do and elder smith said we could give her a blessing and she said she wanted one and that she wanted me to give one to her hahah it was another one of those ´where the crap am i?´ moments haha i was like im in the middle of mexico in a supermodels house now im gonna give her a blessing and try to cast these demons out of her house and do it all i spanish hahahaha ohhh my she told me she hasnt had any problems since then though. its hilarious cuz we are supposed to take members with us to lessons but they never wanna come, and this ruth lady came to church with us last week and after all the guys in the ward were like ´hey i can go with you guys sometime this week if you wanna go visit ruth she seems like a nice lady´ hahahah they act like we dont know whats going on. mandy! this week we ate with this guy and he gave us good food and told us there was dessert, and guess what it was? NORWEIGEN PANCAKES! k im not sure thats what they REALLY were but they tasted just like them and he gave us peanut butter to put on them! cool huh? we´re also teaching this guy named louis who owns a little gas station type store.
my comp told me that i speak spanish in my sleep cool huh? ashley we´re twins now! yesterday in church the mariachi guys wife and daughter got confirmed in sacrament. the wife asked me to confirm her and its pretty sketchy cuz the WHOLE WARD watches cuz its right in the middle of sacrament its like a baby blessing. i think it went ok though. welll i think thats pretty much all that happened this week! im trying to send youguys some stuff bt i wanna do it through dhl so it makes it to you hahah anyways i love you guys and miss you tons! have a fun 4th WITHOUT ME! geeeez. love you guys!

June 21, 2010

hey hey hey ma fammmilaaayyyyyyyyyyy. its your son who youve FORGOTTEN! just kidddddin. ummmm whats happened this week. i cant remember if i told you guys already but last week i had to give a talk in sacrament about the joy of missionary work haha i think it went ok though! geez i thought my farewell talk seemed like a long time to talk i had to give the same length of talk but in GERMAN. or whatever it is im speaking over hurrr. oh my mom guess what im way good at cooking i think hahahaha i made that suddenly salad stuff and those mashed potatoes and they both tasted way good! I DONT CARE IF YOU JUST ADD WATER! haha but those things were so perfect mom! oh yeah! ok. i have a couple requests for you mom. theres a guy in our ward who used to live in the united states and asked me if youd send me a recipe for carrot cake haha he said he loved it. when he asked me hes like ´sabe la receta de un pastel que se llama pastel de conejo o algo asi?´ which means ´do you know the recipe of a cake called rabbit cake or something like that?´ hahahah i was sooo confused for so long hahah i could not think what rabbit cake could be. and also! this lady in our ward loves the jello puddings that come in boxes, so she said that if you could send some to me in my next package for her she would pay you back! so i hope your ok with pesos haha she said that shed loveee some vanilla and chocolate jello pudding boxes. shes the lady that gave us ribs and root beer. this week she made us hamburgers haha shes way cool. oh guess what? theres this kid that just got transferred into our zone and i knew him from cedar ridge! cool huh? i cant remember his name but when we saw each other we just recognized each other and we got talking and he was on my soccer team for all the years that we lived in american fork! i cant remmeber his name now but hes a leeeetle tiny mexican kid haha hes way funny. elder rodriguez? i cant remember for sure. oh my this week we had a party at the church for the dads like we had for the moms and it was so hilarious im gonna try to send you a video i took of one of the dances they did. they LOVE to coreograph dances here haha there was like 5 dances it was so funny. oh k you know the cool mariachi family? well the mom and the daughter got baptized yesterday so that was way cool. the dad still wants to wait until he can for sure come to church every week cuz he is still working saturday nights until like 5 in the morning. i love that family they are soo cool. and they have a dog named max! oh i got another letter from Dale Hansen this week. ive gotten two from him so will you tell him thanks a ton from me? GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACIAS. ummmmmmmmm what else. im gonna try to send some pictures really quick. im not sure if you guys watch the world cup or not but people here are absolutely crazy about it haha its constantly on and when the games end they just start them over and watch them over and over again. mexico beat france the other day and people were running through the streets screaming it was so hilarious haha everyone listens in their cars too so all the cars were honking their horns and stuff it was soooo crazy for like 15 minutes. alllllllllllllllllllll right im gonna try to send some pictures really quick but i hope you guys had an awesome week! ihavent really read any letters yet cuz im just gonna print them off but i love you guys! have a fun week and write me tons!

June 14, 2010

fammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmilay! i got the package with the ipod cord and the food! mom those mashed potatoes were the best thing ever! umm what else. i have 5 months so thats cool! ummm oh my this lady that fed us the other day gave us corn on the cob, ribs, oreo ice cream and ROOT BEER hahah root beer doesnt exist in mexico! can you believe that?! i was so thankful to her it felt like i was in the united states again. the mariachi family accepted a baptism date for this sunday so that would be cool if that happened! mmm what else. i have to direct the area cuz elder barnes left but its been good ive liked it. oh yeah we got a new missionary in our district from the mtc named elder DOGOOD hahahhahahaha ahhhh hes so dingy hahahahah i have to take a picture with him and send it to you. the name dogood is so perfect for him. nothing too exciting happened this week it doesnt seem like! its gonna be fathers day! happy fathers day pops! i sent you an email but here ya go again haha anyways i love you guys and i emailed all ofyou! i hope...ehhhh...hahahah anyways thanks for all you guys do for me! im gonna try and send some pictures really quick. have an awesome week and email me some cool stories! drink some water out of the tap for me haha que les vaya bien! les amo!

May 24, 2010

hey hey family! how the crap is snowy utah? haha it feels soooooo good here today. you guys should come visit or something if your not SNOWED IN hahahahaha k im done. this week was good we were supposed to baptize a family of 3 saturday but they said they wanted another week so we are gonna baptize them, another family of 3 and an 11 year old girl hopefully this sunday. its a total of 7 so hopefully someone out of those guys shows up haha we taught a lesson to that family of three who had the fecha for the saturday that just passed and we taught them the word of wisdom and they were all good with it except one of the daughters drank coffee but said that she could stop any time, so i asked her if she wanted to go on the roof and throw it off haha so we all went up on their roof and she threw this big glass jar of coffee of her roof it was cool. today we went to centro and looked at the cathedrals and went inside and they are sooo sweet! brooke i forgot to tell you this! look up the cathedral in morelia mexico cuz you would love it! its soooo sweet on the inside i took tons of pictures. they were doing mass when we visited and there were tons of people all humming and chanting and stuff it was actually way cool! we had a lesson with our cool mariachi band family this week and it was at like 930 at night and the power company was doing something with their lights so the power was out, so we just lit candles and he played the guitar and we ate ice cream and drank hot chocolate for like 2 hours and listened to him haha you probably jsut had to be there but it was way funny. i love that family so much. they wanna get baptized so bad but he works until 5 in the morning saturday ngihts so they can never come to church. hopefully something changes with it cuz they come to all the other activities during the week they just cant come on sundays. we are gonna keep visiting them cuz they are so sweet. they knocked on our door this morning at like 930 and asked if we wanted to hang out with them again for our pday hahah they are way cool. we had a lesson this week with an investigator we havent been able to find for a while. we taught him the plan of salvation. centro was way cool today there is tons of way cool stuff to see and all these little shops to go too. i found the hotel we can stay at when we come visit too! its right in downtown across the street from the cathedral its way cool. im gonna try to send pictures right now but have an awesome week guys! im gonna print out your letters and read them during the week. thanks for everything and dont forget im ALIVE STILL! love you guys! elder teeeebeets

May 31, 2010

heyehey guys! well we´re in an office depot and i forgot the paper that i write of what i want to send to you guys and i dont have my camera cord so i cant send pictures either! its ok cuz its way expensive here so we have to hurry! well. we didnt baptize ANYONE this week hahahahahhaha ohhhh my heck it was seriously the most frustrating week ever. the 7 we wanted to baptize were 2 families of 3, and one like 11 year old girl. so they say they are all ready to go for this week, so me and one of the zone leaders go on splits for the whole day in our area and i take him to each house so he can interview them to be baptized. we get to the first family of 3 and the mom is like ´i was praying about my baptism and i recieved an answer that i should wait at least another week´ hahaha i really had no idea how i could argue with that so i was like alllll right hahaha her daughter is the one that we had throw her coffee off the roof. all 3 of them are ready and love going to church i dont get what the problem is but hopefully this week. so then we went to the other family of 3 and he started to interview the mom of THAT family and they talked for like 45 minutes and then after that we left and he told me that she has to be interviewed by the mission president before she can get baptized so she has to wait at least until next week too hahah ohhh my heck so our last hope was this leetle 11 year old girl named nahomi. we got there and her dad has to sign her cedula that lets her get baptized cuz shes under 18 and he went to uruapan, another city, for the next 2 weeks hahaha itwas sooo disappointing hahah ohh my heck. but! this week we should have better luck. remember that guy thats been meeting with the missionaries for 13 years? hes gonna get baptized this saturday so thats cool. we are gonna try to get as many of those 7 as we can for the same baptismal service that saturday. we wanna get as many of them baptized before next sunday because its the end of the change and either me or elder barnes will probably get changed to a different area! i hope its not me i love it here its way cool and our barrio is way cool too! everytyhing here is going good! I promised one of our investigators that if she stopped smoking id buy her her favorite pan, so she stopped and told me her favorite is something called a GARIBALDI and that they only sold it in a panaderia thats like an hour from our house hahahah so me and elder barnes had to walk all the way there to get this leetle donut thing thats the size of like a donut hole. it was expensive too. i bought one for myself cuz i had to know if they were good or not and it was OK but nothing that crazy! geeeez lady. ahhh im almost out of time but i love you guys tons! write me tons this week and i miss you guys! elder teeeeebeets

June 7, 2010

hey heyhey! im gonna try to go fast cuz i wanna send pictures! hahah last week we played soccer at that indoor place and i twisted my ankle way bad and all week it looked like i was wearing a moonboot hahahah my kankle was so fat. oh! i got my packages! hoooooooooyeah! i got 2 packages i think the first 2 you sent mom! and the ipod was in there! everything was so perfect! i got those letters from the ward too they are so funny! i loved all those pictures and everything send more pictures! just in emails or something i love seeing pictures of you guys. we baptized a girl named valeria on saturday that i met in a laundromat. her mom and little brother are hopefully gonna get baptized this saturday or sunday the mom just has to stop smoking. our sweet mariachi family came to the baptism and they liked it a ton and then the guy told his band that he couldnt work saturday night cuz he was going to church and then he came it was so sweet. everything was going way good then sunday at like 4 in the afternoon while we were eating lunch the president called and told elder barnes he was getting transferred to be a zone leader in uruapan so that was so sad. he started crying hahaha i felt so bad for him i was way sad too cuz we got along so good. he was way cool but i got my new comp today. his name is elder smith. mom remember when you said that its better that the families didnt wanna just not have anything to do with the church at all? well we were supposed to help one of our coolest families of 3 move the other day and then they were just gone, so we found theyre new house and knocked on the door and they didnt answer, then they sent us a text that said that they didnt wanna talk to us anymore hahahhaha they came to church on sunday and one of the teachers just kinda bashed the catholic church the whole time so that might have offended them or somethinghaha im not sure but i guess they arent gonna get baptized anymore...ehhh.... we.ll see what happens. k im gonna try to send pictures really quick if i get time ill write more but i love you guys tons and miss you! thanks for the packages and emails i love you guys!

May 17, 2010

heyyyyyyyy! talking to you was soooooo sweet last sunday oh my. we were supposed to be able to email monday too but we changed houses and didnt have any time. our new house is way sweet! its 2 stories and just me and my comp live in it. theres a balcony thing in the back with a little tin roof and i put my hammock under it and its been raining a lot so i lay in that and the rain falls right next to me off the roof its so sweet! we went with one of the hermanos to this place and he bought us tacos de cabesa they were way good but they are made from a cows brains eyes cheeks and tongue hahah i guess they just mash it all up and make tacos out of it hahah they tasted good though :/ we taught this lesson at this house and the kids were eating dinner while we were there and ive honestly never seen so many flies in my entire life in one place there was honestly thousands of flies on their dinner table and all in their beans and tacos and they were just eating like nothing was happening hahaha it was so sick they´re like .wanna taco?!. hahahhah last monday after we got moved in we had to go to centro and i bought some more stuff hahha i bought a dock for my ipod for 100 pesos or like 9 bucks haha and we went to this place that sells sweeet ties gage you would be so jealous and they were only like 35 pesos or like 3 bucks. after that i wanted to get a new watch and dad i bought an oakley one you would like i think! its gotta be fake cuz it was like 185 pesos, but its way sweet! a member took us out to lunch the other day to this place called sirloin stockade and it was the greatest place ever its just like chuckarama hyahaha i was in love i really have never eaten so much food in my life. i love the food here but it was a buffet of american food it tasted soo good. they had a mothers day bash at the church this weekand it was hilarious. all the members just dance and have fun its so funny no one cares what anyone thinks. they love american rap and they were playing such bad songs in the chapel hahah but no one had any idea what the words were saying i was laughing so hard. we went to that conference in guadalajara saturday and heard the apostle talk it was way goood but i was mostly just excited for that package haha then the conference ended and they told us they didnt have our mail! can you believe that! and that counted as the zone conference for may so i have to wait until june to get that pàckage! oh well i guess it will give me something to look forward too. we were supposed to have 2 baptisms yesterday and they both fell through so hopefully this week! i dont know if you rememeber the story about the lady that has 2 daughters that we talked to in a bus a couple weeks ago but her and her daughters are gonna get baptized this saturday so thats good! today we played indoor soccer in downtown it was way fun! after that our way cool mariachi band family wanted to have us over for lunch so we went there! they gave us hamburgers haha they were so good. those guys are getting baptized soon too its just hard to get him to church cuz he works saturday nights until 5 in the morning! they wanna get baptized but we just gotta figure out how to get the dad to church. i´ll try to send pictures right now but i love you guys and miss you tons! i printed out all your letters cuz i didnt have too much time again today but i cant wait to read them! oh dad i did look at the pictures of your truck that is sooooo sweet i cant wait to get home so you can finally give it to me! i bet your dying of anticipation! and gage this kid in our ward is way into football and told me that both ladainian tomlinson and santonio holmes are going to the jets?! Love you guys! hasta lunes!

May 3, 2010

Braden seems to be doing great. We cant wait to talk to him Sunday!!

hey hey hey we have been gone all day looking at mayan pyramides so we dont have very much time to email! we have an appointment at 530 and that was 5 minutes ago hahah so we just have to write way fast! last tuesday this taxi driver drove us home and we started talking to him about the church and hes like i really wanna change my life and start following christ so we got all excited and stuff and hes like i just dont know if i can be forgiven of my sins. ive killed 4 people. so that was weird. now he knows where we live too hahah he said he was gonna come to church but he didnt show up. im not sure how much progress we could really make with him until he got out of prison anyways haha poor guy then on wednesday we went to this town in our area that elder barnes has never even been to and hes been in morelia for 3 months hah funny huh its like 45 minutes away. the bus finally got us there and it was so crazy. there wasnt really anything there at all. we talked to 2 people and they both told us we should leave the town fast or else we were gonna get robbed hahaha one of the ladies we talked to was selling used clothes on the side of the road. she was using a tie to tie down her tarp roof and said that she wanted to sell it to me, so i bought it from her for 1 peso haha thats like 9 cents. i tried to pay her more but she said no and that the tie would bring me good luck. it was so filthy and had holes in it but i took it home and washed it and im wearing it right now haha if i have time to send pictures from today youll see it it really isnt too. we were walking to our first appointment the other day and this guy came up to us in the street and shook our hands and then he just started crying and said “i cant find work and my family is hungry and i know you guys are close to christ so can you say a prayer for me right now?.” so we did and it was so sad he was crying so hard it was so sad. we had our baptism saturday night! everything went way good. the water was freezing cuz we didnt have gas but other than that everything was good! we´re inviting a bunch of people to be baptized for may. it was hard when i first got here cuz there werent any investigators so we had to start from scratch but they´re all starting to progress the ones we found. today for pday we went to a place called patzcuaro. you guys should look it up its so sweet! i´ll try to send pictures but i definitely wanna go there after the mission with you guys! theres this island with a huge statue and tons of little stores and restaurants. i bought a ton of stuff and felt bad then remembered that it was like 15 dollars worth of stuff haha thats the cool thing about mexico. oh! i found out about calling for mothers day! we are gonna go to our bishops house sunday and YOU GUYS CALL US! you have to remember that part! haha you guys are supposed to call me at 6pm oclock my time, so i think thats 5 oclock pm your time. elder barnes told me that its a way long process to get the call through, so call a little bit early so we for sure have the whole time to talk! the bishops number is 443-304-0843. call some time this week and make sure it works so that we can talk for way long on sunday! so rememeber thats 6 oclock my time haha if you havent called by like 6:10pm i´ll just run to a pay phone or something haha oh yeah today we went and saw some sweet mayan ruins too. anyways i love you guys tons and miss you too! i cant wait to read your letters i just printed them all out so theyre in my backpack right now. thanks for everything and i´ll talk to you on sunday! love you guys and talk to you soon! ps. make sure brookes at the house! :O nos vemos!