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!!
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