Week 22

April 14, 2014

Wow Week 22, it is weird, I feel like I have been here so much longer than 22 weeks sometimes, but then at the same time I feel like I have only been here no more than a month. Time here in Mexico (Not my whole mission just Mexico) is flying by. I can’t believe that I have already been here for 2 months. It seems like just yesterday I was flying first class on my way to MEX City!

Well just to start out there is some business I need to fill you in on. Number 1, here in Mexico Mothers Day is always the 10th of May, no matter what day that falls on, which means I will be skyping with you on Saturday May the 10th, so please don’t plan anything! I don’t have exact details as to when or how I will call you but I do know that it will be the 10th of May. Second, I just got a Dear Elder from Emily. It was so nice getting a letter when the zone leaders came for their monthly meeting with the letters, if you can write some Dear Elders I would really appreciate it. Don’t include news or anything of great importance because usually I don’t get them until a month later, but it is nice having a dear elder when they come, so maybe just include some spiritual thoughts, a cool story, or something like that would be great! :) Lastly, I am going to send a letter to Emily. After the conference in April one big thing that I took away from the conference was from Sister Reeves talk about family scripture study, family prayer and family home evening. The letter I will be sending to Emily is more or less homework for her to help the whole family complete these objectives so don’t get mad at her if she bugs you to have family studies, you can be mad at me ;) 

Just some quick news from Mexico City:

1. Since the church changed the rule in Mexico that all investigators need to have 5 times at church before they can get baptized no mission has broken 200 baptisms in a single month, until our mission last month! We had a total of 243 baptisms, which is a TON considering our investigators need to go to church 5 times before their baptism.

2. This week in Mexico City is called Semana Santa, where they celebrate the week Christ was crucified and resurrected. Everything will be shut down this week for the most part and everyone will be going on vacation, but the thing I wanted to share with you is the crazy rituals they do this week.... On Thursday (The day Christ was crucified) they take a person who has been building up his resistance to pain the whole year and they treat him like Christ for the day. They will whip him, shove a crown of thorns on his head, beat him and ultimately literally crucify him. Apparently they actually crucify him but don’t kill him, they take out the nails before it is able to kill the person, but after the whole experience the person is usually half dead. In our area this ritual is going to be happening about 10 minutes away from our house, a part of me wants to see it and a part of me no.... That is kind of crazy though.

3. I am losing weight. I wasn’t sure if I was losing weight or not because even though I swear like crazy and we work so hard, I also eat a TON in this area. The only reason I can tell I’m losing weight is because everyone tells me I look fat in the picture we took before my mission for the Christmas Card, and second my belt is now one notch tighter. It has been blazing hot as of recent and I have been sweating like crazy, sweating so much that every night I have to wring out the sweat from my socks... Disgusting I know but true..\

As for the work or stories, this week is pretty bare, It has been a fairly hard transfer even though I have done a really good job at fighting the homesickness and disanimation (*Mark says this is a Spanish word that means melancholy.) I have had a little bit of a hard time with my companion, we really aren’t finding very much success this transfer and I have to deal with the never ending vicious cycle of having a hard time with my companion, which causes me to miss Elder Herd, which causes me to miss home and think about how this could be my last transfer had I done my mission correctly the first time. I’ve done a really good job at staying strong but if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it! :) The only crazy story is that with my new companion we eat a ton in the street! I have been eating tons of Tortas, Carnitas and Tacos in the street, and even though they haven’t made me sick yet I have had really bad diarrhea... haha which really isn’t that bad, just means I spend a lot more time in the bathroom... haha this in turn has given me the chance to read Jesus the Christ a lot more and I am already 100 pages in after starting it 5 days ago. 

Well sorry this week was a little boring, hopefully I will have some cool stories next week about Semana Santa or hopefully we will find some success I can talk about, but just to close I wanted to say I love and miss you all!  Well I miss and love you all and can’t wait to talk to you in one month!!! Crazy to think about that I will be 1/4 done with my mission and talking to you! 

Love,

Elder Adams

PS something funny, here in Mexico they have Dora the explorer also, but instead of saying /come on vamanos, everybody lets go!/ she says /Vamanos come on, vamos a la obra!!/ haha