Week 41

   Wow, well to start the letter, the Valcano next to the city is called Popocateptl, and it's erupting, so there is Ash all over the city. All the cars are covered in white ash, and then if you don't clean it off before night fall, the rain comes and it becomes like brick, all the windows and everything is covered in ash it's so crazy, it's actually really bad to breathe in the city with all the ash fall. 

    We started the week a little slow, we had a couple more meetings in the begging of the week, and I swear that because our mission is so small they have meetings every other day. I also did my first baptismal interviews this week. We had to go about an hour north to Ajusco to do it, and  they have just a house, it's like a mansion house as their meeting house, seeing as they only have a branch there. Whereas in this area, it's really rich and we have a ton of members, which is really nice, because they give us so much food, like I'm gaining so much weight in this area, this is the first time in my life that I've actually had to watch how much I eat. I don't even do it though. I eat as much as I can fit in my stomach without throwing up every meal. I love mexico!! 

   So one of the less active families that we found, their son got baptized. We found them just weeks before he turned 8 years old, so the day he turned 8 he got baptized under the Bishops authority. My comp confirmed him and it was a cool experience.  Elder Carrigan was really nervous to confirm someone in spanish. The family is soo cool and they go to church every week now without our help. The mom is 29 and has 2 kids, her husband was killed 4 years ago right in front of their house by a gang that came by and shot him down to death, sadly his 5 year old daughter was right there next to him. I wanted to cry when I heard the story, that was part of the reason they stopped going to church, but they are now in the temple prep class to get sealed as a family. :) 

    Somedays are really hard as a missionary in the city, but experiences like that change my atitude forever. We got down to work for the rest of the week, and we even saw our awesome mission president chewing out our Stake president. Seriously, I'm so glad that I stayed in this mission with my President. He's so cool and so bold.        Not too many men can chew out Stake presidents. It came down to again, when we needed 9 lessons again. Which is a lot for no transportation in this area, but like it says in 3rd Nephi, "If God has a commandment, he will prepare the way for us to complete it". 
    We got our 9 lessons, and one of the people that we taught I found like 5 weeks ago in the trash, her name was on a piece of paper in the trash, I took it out and it had her address on it. We visited her and she told us she had been waiting for the missionaries for 7 years. 

     I've been rolling with the part down the side of my head with a bunch of gel in the hair, it looked so funny in the begging, but it's something that you HAVE to do in this mission. My comp is rocking his spanish, he's learning it so much faster than I did, and he has a lot of good ideas on how to do the mission work. I need to be more humble in listening to him. Last P-day we climbed a really sweet hill and talked about Zelda and Pokemon for hours, with part of our district. It was nice to be in normal clothes, and then we bought pizza and had our meeting. The house is just as wild as usual, but the other elderes are being more obedient, and being blessed for it. We had an arm wrestling tournament in the house and I won!!! I never thought I was that strong, but I guess the morning workouts are helping. "I'm glad" to hear that your throwing away all the stuff in my room and painting it pink :) I can't wait to come home  to my new and imporved room. I love being a missionary. I don't want the mission to end, even though I only got 9 months and almost a half. Being district leader is my dream and training is a lot of fun. 

Love, Elder Ordway.