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
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