A fun P-Day

Hola mi querido familia,

Happy almost Dia de los Muertos!  I'm not sure that happy fits in the same as it does with Halloween.  Well, its late again and I am going to have to do another fast letter.  Sorry about that, but today was my first P day that we actually did something different.  We had a really great day today.  We went with the familia Ruiz to go on a hike into a canyon and up to a small waterfall.  We went to see the waterfall called Angel de Oro.  (Translates to Golden Angel)  It was a fun hike up into a really neat canyon along a small river, in a few parts it got to be like the Zion narrows (I've never been there and I'm sure the narrows is bigger)  but it was really cool.  IT was a 25 minute hike where we crossed the river a lot of times, Hermano Francisco had to carry his daughter on his back over many parts of the river, but it wasn't a hard hike, but it was really beautiful.  Lots of green plants and beautiful canyon walls and all of that.  But it was something different to do, and it was fun.  We didn't get to see the big waterfall, in the end you have to swim about 30 meters up a deep skinny part of the canyon to see the big fall, but we could see part of the spray from the last of the dry land.  But there was a small waterfall at one point in the hike.  It was fun, but for now, on to the questions.

(How has your week been? Any new investigators or baptisms?)

1.  Still no baptisms.  We have a few new investigators, and we actually have a good amount of people that we are teaching, and they are all really good people, but nobody will come to church no matter what we do.  Its getting really frustrating.

(Have you received the package yet and is there any way you could store it at the mission office until it's closer to Christmas?)

2.  I don't think that I will have an option.  But I still don't have the package yet, hopefully I don't have to move with it, guess we will see what happens.

(I've been reading about Dia de los Muertos.  What do you know about it?  Is it a religious holiday or is it celebrated by everyone?)

3.  I really don't know too much about it, other than we will be eating a lot of mole this week, every house we visit has people stewing up giant pots of mole negro.  But it is a Catholic traditional holiday, but it is widely recognized by todos. (all)  The people believe that the spirits of the dead can come back to visit for some time, so the people make all sorts of mole and food to leave for the spirits.  Not everyone has this belief, but everyone celebrates and remembers their ancestors.  People go to the graveyards to eat food and then there is also party's everywhere.  But I really don't know too much.

(We've been wondering how you get your money each month.  Have you had enough to get by?)

4.  We all have a credit card that has money deposited in it every month, and then we can take the money out of an ATM.  Ive been okay money wise so far, but we have to be careful.  We have been using the bikes alot.  But today Elder Jone`s bike is getting to the point of giving out, they are pretty old and hammered.  So we are gonna have to fix them up.  There is one ATM in all of Etla, there is a Banamex (bank) in the main commercial part of Etla (Villas de Etla).

(How was the zone conference with Elder Duncan?)

5.  The zone conference was really cool.  We learned alot and really felt the spirit during the meeting.  He shared some really neat experiences.  It was also cool because it brought back some of the feeling of the MTC, even more because me and Elder Jones are comps.  Elder Duncan will be giving a talk in the MTC in a little while and will use some fotos from our mission.  Which is cool, I don't think I should say that though.  The speakers at the MTC were always on the down low and kept very secret from us missionaries.

(Have you hear from Drew?)

6.  I haven't heard anything from him, or Trevor, I did write him a few weeks ago, but I guess he cant respond anyway, which is really sad.  But hopefully they can at least do cool things on their Pday, I don't know if what we did today was ok or not, but we were in our area and obeyed everything in the White Bible at least.  But I should write a quick hi to Drew sometime.

(Any cool experiences you'd like to share this week?)

7.  We did hear a cool touching story from one of the members here, but I don't have time to write it out.  But nothing really special this week happened.

(Did you know the email you sent last week telling us the pictures weren't loading, was in Spanish?  Were you being funny or testing my Spanish reading ability?)

8.  Haha, I actually started out in Spanish on accident because I had just finished writing Presidente and returned to send the pics, but they weren't working.  Then I realized and just decided to keep on writing in Spanish to be funny, so a little bit of both I guess.

Anyway, I do have pictures to send this week, but the internet place we are at is kinda terrible, and it isn't letting me attach them to an email, I'm kinda upset about it, ill keep trying, but Ive gotta write pres and go.  So sorry for another terrible letter.  But I love you all so much!  Have a great week.

Love,

Jordan


Eso!  I got the pictures to work.  Here are a few from our hike.  I gotta write pres, so I cant write a commentary or anything while its loading.  But it doesnt need one other than we are with familia Ruiz.  There is hermano Francisco (Pancho), Hermana Juliete (Im not sure thats the spelling, but its Pancho`s wife), and their daughter Zoe.  There is also two others that are their friends, but I dont know their names.