Week 12

Hey guys

   I'm so glad to hear from you. I really enjoy this hour to write to you all and the letters was excellent. My shoes are good the echos are really nice and are holding up nicely. They are always dusty and shining them is practically useless because within an hour they will be just as dirty again. The orthopedics are life savers, I haven't had any pain in my feet even though we walk a ton. I always feel like I'm blessed with this kind of stuff. I see people's pants ripping or shirts tearing but all of my stuff is holding up nicely. I'm sure it's only a matter of time though.

     I love hearing about the ward and other missionaries in the ward too. It does my heart good to hear that the Coopers are preparing, they are really going to love serving the Lord. The honor to see miracles every which way you look is the best thing for anyones testimony, and I think if I've learned anything this week it's the power of my calling. I got to give two blessings this week. All the members and inactive have a lot of respect for the missionaries and love to receive blessings here. So me and elder Mathis are constantly busy with the inactive. There is like a inactive every corner because ( I might have already said this ) but 70 percent of the members here are inactive, but this week was more walking than ever. 

    I'm in the best shape of my life right now. Only my back pains me after hauling the backpack full of libros de mormons around. I feel great though. I sleep like a rock every night and the only mission rule that is hard is the waking up in the mornings. I'm still not used to 6 to 6.30 wake up. I did enjoy my time staying up late, but I get to see the sun rise every morning during my morning work outs I get to see it come over the volcanos and it really is a sight to see. I'm so blessed with my apartment and the beautiful view that we have. We were running low on food again this week. I had to resort to oatmeal with no sugar and extra water to make it last, but as for dinner... We are always booked. Speaking of which, some of the food here does not suit me well, but other food is amazing. Like I said earlier I'm in the uttermost south part of the city next to the jungle and it's really poor because we are on the side of the mountain, so the food is not the best either. 
The other day I had cactus and onion tacos. I thought I was going to die. They have cactus all the time here and it feels like I'm eating rubber. Always I have had the runs now for 6 days. Some days I almost didn't make it back to the aparment before I exploded. It's really getting to my stomach but I feel fine for about 3 hours after.

     I dont have too much use for my gold watch because if I wore it out in the open it would be stolen fast, but dad your right people don't really have any beaf with the missionaries. They just like to make fun of us because we are white and we look rich with our shirts and ties, but on the 12 was the dia de la virgen ( Day of the Virgen). They abosolutly love the virgen Mary here actually they call her guadolupe for who knows what reason becasue there is a word for Mary in spanish. But fireworks were going all night and drunk people everywhere. Since alot of people here are die hard catholics. 

  There was a lot of parties and we almost didn't get to see anyone. About the akas. It's the guards that have the akas and the thugs that have the pistols, but I still have a smile on my face from all the stuff I have seen here.                  Ashley was totally right when she said that you have such a whole another view on the world when you go to Mexico. I have seen super rich people, more in the middle of the city, and super super poor people, but they are the most humble which is why I love this area so much. I really do love this work it's just hard with the language still. I can understand so much better than when I first arrived but people speak so fast and they don't have good sentence structure here that it's hard to follow people sometimes. I love spanish though I just feel like its always been part of my blood. 

   It's funny because there really is no such thing as a burrito here. Only way up in the north do they have burritos. its always tacos tacos tacos with things like panista which is simply ground up pig guts and you throw it in a quesadilla. It was not very good but you have to stuff yourself with whatever is given you here and you have to clean your plate or else. Elder Mathis is a funny guy because he is like a hard core boy scout, he works all year round with the scouts and he's kind of a nerdy scout. He always has stories about skits that he's done and merit badges that were hard, and he doesn't like how the church runs the scout program, but I just laugh and try to enjoy his personality, which really isn't too much like mine; but after the scouting experience I have had, I would never complain about how the church runs it. Jeff is the ultimate leader and has prepared me more than anything for this high adventure. Which literally is high. That's why it's so cold. It's so high up even though it's sunny every day. I love the sun but I would much rather have snow or oregon weather right now. I'll probably eat my words but I miss the cold during Christmas. it really doesn't feel like Christmas. Only rich people can afford to buy lights and only a few people have trees. Speaking of which we got this little arobilta which is a small tree. I think it's perfect for out little apartment. 

   I'm really sorry about no pictures. It's always hard remember to bring my camera to the internet shop on p-days. We barely bring anything with us and the internet is really slow so the pictures take forever to download; but I promise next week I will upload most if not all my pictures here, they are some good ones, but I can't pull out my camerea for the really cool stuff, and the videos I might have to send home, since Elder Mathis is a district leader, we have meetings twice a week at the stake center which is way far away from us, we are kind of in the middle of nowhere mexico. I am actually getting tan and in the middle of december too haha. 

  We get to go to the temple this month so one of these days I will get to go through a spanish session, I'm way stoked. The language is still really hard, but we got this family as investigadores and within the first lesson we got 3 fechas or baptism dates. I'm so stoked, this is why I love my misison, in  fact that I'm actually saving souls, also I have learned more than anything this week that we are in a war just as cruel as the Nephites wars with Satan. He is working really hard and I can actaully see his hand in these people.  The people here are really flaky and are afraid of change, my first investigator with a date fell through and said that she never wanted to see us come back again. I was heartbroken but it seems like nothing can get me down. I love the elders in my zone and we are all way happy. We don't get to play sports here because it's really dangerous and too many times missionaries get hurt, but for a christmas present,  we all got to play soccer and I can tell you that soccer here is way different than in the states. These mexicans have skills unlike I have ever seen, but it was way fun. 

 We all had to sing and or dance in this christmas program thing. My districe did white Christmas and I had a solo along with elder Mathis wand we danced too it was awesome. Also I had to give a talk in church this last sunday on service. I thought it was awesome and everyone loved it. As long as your humble about your spanish no one thinks twice. I saw people crying and it was exactly what I needed to get my hops up again. I can't wait to receive those chanlcas or flip flops. I need them I have to use this garbage bag, it's really quite funny when I shower. Also our toilets butsed as usual so we have to flush it with the water that we use from the showers. I really can only write 1 100 of all the cool things that happen here and I love the time I get to warm my fingers up by typing as fast as a can, I don't know why Mathis doesn't write more, he always is finished when I'm halfway though, but I love the guy and were doing really good together. 

 I love the people as usual, the food is at times too much for me to handle but I can stomach it. I think because I'm new they have different food for me, ike these weird chicken things that were no bueno, but I love you and Mathis is pushing me out the door. Until next week


 Elder Ordway!!

Week 11

Hey everybody:

   So I finished another week, and this week was just as crazy as last week. I expect every week will be though. I just saw a guy get thrown out of his store that he runs. His shirt got ripped off and he got the crap beaten out of him by 9 guys with guns. People all over the streets just have AK's and are always drunk. Dogs here are bad. I didn't see it last week but this week, I was fighting dogs off all week, especially in the jungle is were the wild dogs are and one bit me but I only got a little scar on my hand . It didnt enter though, but I never thought I would be using the book of mormon as a weapon.

   We got a baptismal date this week with a lady who have a lot of trouble. Every lesson is a cry fest with her, but we do our best. Here are some die hard Catholics and would never think twice about letting us into there house, in fact almost everyone here is Catholic, which means they all believe in God, which means that I haven't had to teach that lesson nor will I probably. Also there are no seat belts in this place. Every taxi and car just drives crazy without a seat belt. Our ward had a Christmas Party with pinadas and food it was cool and we got a family of investigators to come. 

   Me and my comp are really cool  or in nos caimos bien or we fall well together. The language is still really hard, people are speaking way to fast for anyone to understand. People will just ask me direct questions and I won't understand a single word. It's all good though. I'm learing more and more every day. A lot of it just doesn't make sense, you just have to memorize over and over and over again. Today is p-day, and I woke up and worked out. We work out every day here and it's great. I'm already getting really strong. Well at least alot more strong than I was working and eating at wendy's. 

I got my first mexican hair cut today and me and Elder Mathis baked a cake together. We are going to give it to this family that lives near us. They aren't very rich but they are always giving giving giving to us everything. Things are so different here, like literally everything. You have to be careful what you say because you never know if people are going to take offense to it. People really don't like americans here because they think they are all racist. We get made fun of daily by people all over the streets. It really doesn't get to me thought because I can't understand what they are saying. Even the members will make fun of us because we can't roll our rr's or because we have alot of arm hair. We have to turn on our biuoler every morming at like 6 because it takes a while to warm up. I honestly cant remember what I've said and what I haven't so I'm just going to speak my mind as fast as I can. 

  Something really popular here is rice and bananas toghether, go figure but people love it . I'm like in the poorest area in the whole mission which is awesome. I love it. People are so humble and they will just spill all there thoughts and feelings to you and start crying half way throught the apostasy, but people here are reallly flaky. They are never home when they say they will be and it ruins everything. It's pretty cold here actually now that I think of it. It's really high altitude so it makes climbing the hills in my area really hard, btw my area is on a side of a mountain and part of it is in the jungle. It's way cool but it's alot of walking, constantly we have to climb and lower and climb, it's destroys your knees like no other. Some of the micros here play really cool spanish station,  and I can help but fall alseep every time I get a seat in the micros. I'm always so tired but I love it. I've seen like 80 people on a micro. its crazy. those who have bags on micros are hated becasue it takes up to much space. one of our investigators wants to get baptized but isn't getting married until May. dahhhhh!!! because the people here are so rich. 

   The food isn't the best. It's good but really different. You wouldn't find a burrito 100 miles of here, but once I had enchiladas, once. A meal here is different too because they always have a first meal which almost always is some kind of macaroni soup and or rice and bananas. Then they give you the main meal which includes really fatty meat and tortillas. Always tortillas. I haven't had a meal yet that I couldn't stuff into a tortilla. I love it. We are really busy every day and in reality we could use like 8 more people in our area and like 900 more in our mission. I love it because the people here believe in the Santo Muerte or death as an actual being and the fear him so they sacrifice animals. I never thought I would be in such a different place as this.

  I always under estimate how different our cultures are, and people are really small here. I think it's so funny that I'm the tall one and people always have me grab things for them. I'm like not tall though so its weird. My whole world feels shrunk in. My legs can't fit in micros seats and my head hits things now. Tall people are so lucky. The sour cream here is funky too it's like really liquidy like a cream and it's not very common. People love their pollo (chicken) here though. We had hot dogs the other day and the hot dogs here are different to but I like them. It's like a salad on a dog. A lot of veggies and chilis and the ketchup here is different too, people love it on their pizza and it's actually pretty good. We don't get the chance to eat out or at the stands because people always want us over for meals. We spring cleaned our house because I have been sick for 3 weeks now. It's no bueno. I'm fighting athletes foot, and it's a battle that I'm losing,  I hate it. And with our toilet every other day we have to fix it. Either the water pressure or something is just crappy made, or  it's mother clogged for like 5 days. 

  I also love here how spiderman is called hombre arana. I always laugh at that, there is so much to talk about and I literally have the most interesting journal ever but what really makes my mission awesome is the missionary work. We work really hard with the members and we are constantly late for things because here in mexico people love to talk and talk fast. So they will talk 40 minutes after the appointment. The work is truly inspired of the Lord though. I have seen miracles that I didn't think I would see ever with people and dogs and toilets. You would never have a stronger testimony of this work untill you go on a mission and see with your own eyes the miracles that the Lord has in store for you and his children and his work. I'm so glad to be apart of this and there is no way I'm coming home early. This is where I was meant to be and the fact that I can actually help people is the best feeling ever, all I want to do is do service for poeple

 I'm always sad that they say they don't have any work for us to do, but this city had so much personality and the people here are either really mean to us or too nice to us. My stomach has double but my weight has half. All the walking and working out in this high altitude is rough, but my leg muscles are beast or at least they will be. I miss everyone so much especially at this time of year, I want to be home so badly sitting at the table for some sour cream chili bean bake or taco bell. I still swear that taco bell is the real mexican food. 

Did dallas get the preisthood yet??  oh bty my address is    

Av. Progreso 106, 3° Piso

   Barrio Santa Catarina, Coyoacán

     Districto Federal 04010 

México

I think it's in my packet that I left home, and sorry for my spelling. I really can't spell anything anymore now that I'm learning spanish. The biggest problem we have here is that everyone drinks, everyone smokes, and everyone lives together and isn't married. That and no one likes to come to church. We have a ward of about 60 people and we share it with 2 other missionaries. So we are working really hard to get baptisms for this ward. The bishop expects a lot out of us. 20 baptisms this month between 4 elders. I have faith though, but time is running out. As far as the christmas spirit goes, this is how you should feel when chrsitmas comes. True love for the Savior and his Atonement. We go around and sing to the members because (there not very good at singing ) We sing christmas songs and share the story in Luke about the Savior's birth. 

I miss you guys way to much and can't wait to call you in a couple weeks. We might be able to skype but I'm not sure yet. 

I love you guys 

Elder Ordway!!!!

Week 10- Mexico!

Hey guys:  I'm officially in Mexico. 

I've been here for a week and there is so much to talk about ,so much in fact that I probably won't be able to say 1 tenth of what happened. Luckily I have my trusty journal with it all, but the flight was good, we left the mtc at 5 in the morning ,meaning that we needed to wake up by 3:30. By the way, this mexican keybopard is completely different,so my typing will be even worse. but we almost didn't get on a shuttle to the airport. 

We flew out and landed in Phoenix, in Phoenix airport we caught our plane to Mexico. It took us a while to leave, and the flight was like 3 and a half hours or something. we had to fill out these immigration forms and I honestly had no idea what I was doing, alot of it was in Spanish and I really can't speak Spanish very well. We landed and the mission President and the AP's picked us up. We headed to the mission home where we dropped off all of our stuff and them we headed to the Presidents house. We had echiladas verdes which were bom, made by his wife. All 15 spent the night in the mission home and the next day we met our comps. 

My comps name is Elder Mathis and he's an awesome guy. He doesnt talk to much but nonetheless he is really good at spanish and he's like 8 inches smaller than me. I'm actually like the tallest person in all the city, not really, but I'm always looking over these small mexicans. The people here are amazing, they are so ready to accept the gospel, and if you know how to use your words right, you can always get another visit, in fact one lady was saying that she hated Americans and that she didn't believe that babies are innocent, nonetheless we got a second cita with her (cita is date).  We took a taxi to our house and I unloaded everything I have, our house is pretty shotty but it is one of the best views of the city possible which means that we have to climb a mother hill every time we go back to our apartment. There is like no food in it and its always cold , but nonetheless it's home.

 Believe it or not I already have athlete's foot. Within 2 days I got it. For that reason I hate mexico, but I'm in an area called contreras dos which is placed on a side of a mountain. The higher up you get in the city the more poor the people are and the people in my area are really poor. I literally had no idea how blessed I was until I left the MTC. Like is hard here for the people. Always having to earn their living and no one here is richer than me. There are a few areas with really really really nice houses, but for the most part everything is made of  cement and brick, houses are stacked 3 high and no one has a front door. They live in little communities with like 4 -7 families and there is always like 6 living in each house.  The member love to have the missionaries over for dinner, we are booked for the next 3 weeks, which means that we don't have time to eat at the taquerias, the little taco shops. Everything here is really cheap. its like 20 cents to ride the micros(bus) and like 2 bucks for taxis. 3 dollars can stuff two elders full of tacos, and the graffiti here is redic, I have never seen so much graffiti, and people. 

The streets are jammed full of people, all walking around and driving. Every other car is a taxi and the rest are micros. Micros are like little busses. We take them everywhere, because our area is pretty big. We take a lot of buses, taxis and micros, and the subway a lot, which makes it hard to learn the city, because there is always a need to take the micros. as far as the food goes, I love it, it's exactly what I wanted for mission food. Sometimes its a little fatty or too many bones for my taste. but its really good. people here don't eat dinner or breakfast, they just have one really really big lunch at like 3. being on the side of a hill is tough, I gained 12 pounds in the MTC and now I'm losing it fast, but it takes a lot out of me. The micros are always full of people and you sometimes have to stand for 1.30 minutes at a time on the micros. The drivers here are crazy, in that sense though, they are really good, because they can do stuff with cars that I would not dream of. every car here is a stick shift bug too, haha, but things are going great. All of mexico is doing this thing where you focus less on baptisms, but focus more on making the inactive come to church, because 70% are inactive here. There are so many catholics is ridiculous as well. You have to be very careful with your words to make sure you get another visit. My favorite lesson yet was in the back of a tienda, or a little store. ( there are these little tiendas, everywhere, I mean everywhere, all selling the same thing coke products. Coke here is like air in eugene, but we taught the first lesson to a investigator. The language is harder than I thought. I can't hardly understand anything that people say or when they talk to me I really can't understand. They talk lightning fast and  everything. I know really common frases like where do you live, how much does it cost and who's turn is it to say the pray,  but what they teach you in the MTC is nothing like what it is here. People have no mercy with the language. Your not allowed to speak english, but if you really have to you can. So all I can really do is testify, and the people here love to hear me give the prayers. I always get called  to give the prayer. They love to here me struggle. 

Church was awesome. It was fast and testimony meeting and unlike the United States as soon as the counselor is done talking,half the congregation gets up to bear their testimony. Ididn't even know what was happening before it was to late to introduce myself. No one drinks the water here and in fact drinking water is a pain because it means that you have to use the bathroom, and as a missionary it's harder than you think to find a bathroom. You drink only that which you need to survive here because everything that is drinkable is in bottles. there is no water pressure here either so every toilet clogs every time and you have to throw the toilet paper away instead of flush it. which sucks and stinks literally. There are no plungers either so you have to get creative with water buckets. Sorry for those who didn't want to hear that last part. 

We have to take micros all over the city, and its a pain because no one has cars here in the city. So everyone takes the micros. there is also like a smog covering the whole city although I'm at like the highest part of the whole city, I can only see maybe 1 sixteenth of it. speaking of which. the city is massive, I really mean massive, unlike anything I have ever seen before. It's takes 3 hours to drive across the city no joke. It's 2.30 trip to the temple which we get to do once a year. oh yeah church. in Priesthood, they had people come up and give blessings to the sick. 

In Priesthood meeting, I saw like 4. I participated in one with some other elders on a comp exchange and I gave my first one in spanish to my comp who asked for one. I've been sick since the MTC with a cold. Our house isn't the cleanest and especially not the city so its hard to fight it off. It took me a while to get used to pesos. The peso is about 1 /13th of the dollar and its like 1 peso for a gumball here. My mission President is hilarious and really nice. He's strict in the things that we can't do like listen to any music whatsoever and a few other things. but on the micros sometime there is american stations playing like 94.5 that I love to listen to. I'm not a big city kind of person and it's hard to deal with its compactness, but I love the sounds here. All day and all night long you can here dogs barking and chickens crowing. There is a dog like every other foot here. None of them are spaded or nudered so they just go around and multiply. There is garbage every where and sometimes like 2 feet high of garbage. The people are so funny in the way when compared to Americans, because they are so nice and they never get to see gueros or gringos, which means white boys. People are always looking at me for how tall i am ( believe it or not) and how white I am and the fact that I'm wearing a shirt and tie. People call us gueros all the time but it really isn't that offensive, at least I don't take offense to it, that and girls that are like 18 or 17 here are always looking at you and smiling, but they all look like there 13 here. One family investigator we had had a daughter that was 18 and she looked at me the whole time. In fact the girl sitting next to me right now is staring at me, I'm not sure if its because I'm white or because I type like 50 times fasters than the people here do. 

In the midst of all this ranting about how bad the city is, I absolutely love it. I love the mexican people and it's an honor to be in the city with them. I love how hard my mission is, it's exactly what I needed to learn how blessed I am. Life is just hard here and that's normal, but I love my comp my apartment, my area, my call, I love the food and how cheap everything is here. I love my view from our balcony and the fact that there is no embarrassment anymore because your on your mission with no social life. I miss american food though. It's just not the same as a good burger, but I feel the spirit and the help of the Lord do things that I would not be able to do especially with the language. I cant understand anything but the Lord helps me keep my courage up to talk to people. I cant wait to come home and talk with Maria and Ellie and whoever else I know that can speak  spanish. oh an most important, make sure Ashley  hears this part. that one night at like 9.30 we walked past this dance party dinner thing and they were playing the song moli moli from the chipmunks adventure. I smiled for the next 5 days. I love the shops on the side of the roads, and the fact that I'm the only person who doesn't where a coat here. because it really isn't that cold, they just like there mexican warmth. We got the chance to watch the Christmas devotional in spanish, so I didn't understand but I could still feel the spirit. I miss everyone and its so hard to think of how awesome my life was back home, but I love it here and there is nothing that would make me come home early. 

I love you all and will talk to you all in a week. <

love, 

 Elder Ordway