He's FINALLY in Mexico!

Well to start off this keyboard is different and I don't know how to caps or anything like that, so mom please fix my spelling and my grammar mistakes. Secondly this week was really, really, really hard and we work really hard here in this mission. We have very strict rules, a lot of which we don't have anywhere else in any other mission. Some of which include having to part our hair every morning, not being able to write anyone of the opposite sex minus our family and having to follow the schedule with 100 percent exactness-doing everything 100 percent obediently. Secondly we work so hard in missionary work and our numbers really show for it... in SLC we had goals of 20 contacts a week, 15 lessons, 2 new investigators. Here we have goals of 70 contacts a week, 60 lessons a week and 15 new investigators. We have the highest numbers in all of Latin America and we practically run everywhere we go. 

I've never been so tired in my entire life; this has probably been the hardest week of my life. I'm exhausted because we live at the bottom of a valley and every morning we run up the valley to then go take a combi, which is basically a big white van, to the other side of our area. We run and speed walk everywhere, which with the altitude change and air change is really, really tiring. They say that the air is so bad in Mexico and that it is like smoking a pack of cigs a week. It is also about 5,000 extra feet about sea level (Dad’s edit: Mexico City is 8000 ft. above sea level) and so I'm ready to die everyday going up hills and stairs because none of our area is flat... Spanish is really hard also. Everyone says that for my first week my Spanish is leaps and bounds above most people who come in, and I can usually understand what is being said, but the hardest part is understanding the different accents, different names and where everything is and what it is called.

The area I'm in is called Consituyentes and is just outside of D.F (Dad’s edit: D.F is the Federal District or Mexico City and is not a state - similar to D.C). We are in el Estado de Mexico (Mexico State). Life here is so, so, so different and I can’t even explain it without having you here to show you what I mean. Everything here is made of cement and you have a nice house if the floor and walls are level. There are dogs covering the streets and most of them are afraid of people because a lot of people throw rocks at them and the kids kick them in the face. There are no real shops like there are in the US. Everything is run out of a house and won't have doors. The bigger shops are just like a shop in the mall where it has big opening where people enter and exit as they please. Most shops though are just run out of their own homes. They have a small little shop with lots of stuff that you have to go up to the window to buy and behind the window is usually the house of the person who owns the shop. My companions name is Elder Herd and I will be his last companion. He is 23 months into the mission and will be going home the first week of April. He is really kind, very humble and a very, very hard worker. 

Some experiences from the week: this week the four new elders who came into the mission with me all got assigned to their trainer and went to their areas. One of the new elders got sent to the most ghetto, dangerous part of the mission. He said that within his first 9 minutes after getting out of the taxi he saw a dead person.... wow that is so crazy to me! Secondly on the other side of the valley from us, where we live, are our best investigators. That whole side of the valley is actually one family. They are all related somehow but we are only teaching about 30 of them, about 6 different families. They are so awesome and are so strong and we are planning on baptizing all of them by the end of the transfer. One of the daughters whose name is Adriana is 19 and has 2 kids, which is very normal in Mexico, took us out one night to all of her aunts and uncles and was like oh these are the missionaries you should listen to them... haha it was really cool and really funny. Lastly Saturday night I got really, really sick. I was throwing up all Saturday night and actually gave my self a fever going from my bed to the bathroom so many times and as of last night had a 102-degree fever. I still had to go to church yesterday but after we went home and I rested the whole night and I'm feeling a lot better today. Well I’m out of time love and miss you all.

Elder Adams