February 20, 2017

This week was wild, i dont even know where to start. We found some good investigators this week, the problem is everybody is super open with their feelings about the gospel and everyone here supposedly loves god and loves to pray but nobody ever wants to apply his teachings in their lives, cuz that works. We convinced this one lady's husband to sit in on one of our and he used to go to bible camp as a kid, and he knows all this stuff, like he was telling us how important it is you hang out with good people because he would go to bible camp and be churchy while living with his sister during the summer but when he got back to his neighborhood he would start gang banging again. also our colonia (neighborhood) is deportee central, there are soo many people that speak english because they have been deported. We contacted this one guy in english (because he got deported of course) and it was sooo chill and so much easier. we found some of the dangerous areas in our area this week so we know not to go there anymore. we got this other family too that investigated the church for two years, the church helped him stop smoking, and the mom prayed and has a testimony of the book of mormon, they even have family home evening, hopefully we can get them baptized, because that is seriously the only thing they lack. We hung out with elder martinez and elder cangas today and that was fun. We had interviews with president this week so we had to go to ixtapa on saturday with takes over an hour both ways, and then we had stake conference saturday and sunday so we had to go up there again, i felt like we were wasting so much of the lords time. I dont understand how missionaries can be disobedient, we had to pay our water bill this week so we spent like 2 and a half hours trying to find somewhere to pay it because directions in mexico are a nightmare. we werent being disobedient, because we needed to pay the bill, but i still just felt like i was wasting time that i couldve spent helping people. We did service this week for a recent convert named Jorge, he is so awesome, his girlfriend wants him to do bad stuff but he doesnt want to because hes truly converted so the fight about it a lot i think. He got the melchizedek priesthood on sunday and it was awesome. I got the gift of tongues this week, not only to speak spanish but to speak mechanic in spanish, he needed help changing his carburator and tuning it and the spirit pretty much helped me remember everything ive ever heard johnny wadsworth say. it was way cool, and now his awesome truck runs even better, ill send pictures in a minute. I made the mistake of eating a few different chillys this week, i regretted it every single time. We ate some good food and are starting to get the hang of things. i wish stake conference wasnt this week because we need to get to know the members mnore, theyre all so awesome and friendly but we dont know them. In stake conference some people stood up and apposed the stake president which was weird, and then president clayton the mission president planched them. thats what we say here, planch means  iron, like you iron your clothes. and then the area seventy planched them too. We went to mismaloya which is a little pueblo a bit south of us, its in our area but its like an hour away, it was way pretty, and way touristy on the way there, but the pueblo is like out in the jungle, there are these peacock looking things that hop around in the trees, they fed us whole fishes, they cut the guts out but the eyes and head were still on and everything. They were caught in the ocean that morning, it was way good, the places people live here are psycho, but fun.  i am going to rant about that elder _______ guy for a minute, so we are supposed to email until 6 and then go back to work, so they were in our area and i said "k lets go" and he said "wait i still have to email president" then we waited for him to email president and continue messaging his friends until aboput 6:45, then they finally left so me and elder stubbs did our thing, then at like 7:50 we were walking to an appointment and we see elder ______ (still in ourt area, which is 45 minutes from his area) walking to go get tacos with some tourists he met. no idea. then that night at like 9:30  district leader calls us to ask if we know where they are because they werent home, and things are pretty dangerous here so we have to be in at 9, that is a way strict rule. so then on sunday one of the members mentions how they saw him in there, because thats exactly what we want our members to think, that the missionaries hang out with tourists at eat tacos all the time, i was fairly irritated. then he said they went ipod shopping (instead of missionary work [also not on pday) the dudes a fool. i was so irritated. here they call that "frito", it means you do whatever you want instead of following the rules. also we got a knife pulled on us last night, so that was neat, he wanted all of our money, but we didnt give him our money and were friends now, his name is james and he got deported so her knows english, and he knows a weird amount about the church, i wonder if he used to be a member, he told us he was going to go on a mission until he found out you have to pay for it yourself so now hes on the run.

This is from our chat :

"we go to district class every tuesday, with our whole district and usually another district, there are 18 people in our zone i think, 22 with the people who got emergency transfered down from nayarit. updfate there, they were having a limpieza, which means cleansing, they pretty much just bring in the military to kill everyone in the pacific cartel, but i think they killed most of them and things are settling down now. they cartel has so much power its a mini war for a little bit. those missionaries get to go home to santiago soon. today we hiked a cross thing, ill send pics. we havent played any soccer yet which is sad. we arent allowed to eatr the street food, but the members usually feed us out of the pots that they take to the centro to sell on the street haha, the mebers feed us sooo good. i might buy quesadillas this week, we eat tortillas with everything. one of our investigators, adrianna sells donuts, and she carries the tray of donuts on her head, has the tray holder in one hand, and beats her 4 year old with the other hand, she walks up and down these hills selling donuts off her head, its way cool."