Quick Monday letter...and a few pics

Hola mi familia,

I don't have to much time to talk to you today, we are going to have a noche de hogar with a some new references that we got from a family this week.  So we are excited for that, but it has cut down the time we have today.  We went and played football, the American kind for once, at the church in Brenamiel (in Oaxaca).  Which was really fun.  It was two hand touch and nobody got hurt like we do playing soccer usually.  Then we went and ate some tortas together (like 10 missionaries).  It was fun and a good pday.  But we are going to go with a family in just a little bit and do our laundry and the hermano might teach us a little bit of guitar.  I'm kinda sad that I never stuck with any instruments, its my own fault, but I may make it a goal to try and learn some guitar songs.  Elder Jones has a guitar that the elders before us left behind.  Anyway, I'll hurry on to the questions.

(How has your week been?  Have you gotten Etla figured out?)

1.  This week was really good.  We mas o menos have all of the areas and parts of Etla figured out.  We are starting to have a fair amount of people to teach and are getting all settled in here I guess you could say.  These two weeks have gone by really fast though.  Hopefully we don't get moved after only one cambio.

(I'm still trying to find you on google earth.  Are you in the small group of apartments across the large highway from the Villa de Etla?)

2.  The big group of apartments that are together is what is called a fraccionamiento and that is where we live.  The apartments all are blue with red roofs.  Its across from the main part of Etla (Villa de Etla) and it is in this Villa de Etla where the mercado is and it is also where the church is.  The church is... oh I've already forgotten the name of the street, but it is farther from the highway than"great and spacious building" and is before the train tracks.  I sent a picture last week I believe of the church in front of the huge building.

(Did you get any baptisms scheduled this week?)

3.  We don't have any baptisms scheduled, but we do have several people that we are thinking will be prepared for baptism before the end of this change.  But we don't have anyone that is bien pilas that we can say will be baptized for sure.

(I saw on Sis. Leyva's FB that you and Elder Jones ate breakfast there on Monday.  How was it?  How do you get into the city?)

4.  It wasn't on Monday, I think it was Friday or Thursday when we went, but it was really good.  The food was great.  Elder Jones is doing good on health, though he is starting to have some more pain in his stomach.  Elder Jimenez is still really sick and it turns out another elder from the same area that Elder Jimenez and Jones were got sick there too.  So Hna. Leyva is trying to help that area out.  We take a collectivo when we go to the city, which is a taxi that goes on a set route and costs less.

(Do you need another umbrella?  I hope you've been using the raincoat with all the rain you've been having.)

5.  I've been using the rain coat and not the umbrella, but it hasn't really rained since that day.  My package made it in one piece, a little wet inside, but it was okay.

(Do you use taxis a lot?  Be careful, I've heard of debit cards being stolen lately.)

6.  Because the area is big and our foods are spread out and also our distinct meetings are in the city we do use a lot of taxis, so we do need to be careful, but ya, I know that I need to be careful.

(Your apartment looked SO messy on the first day you arrived.  Aren't there any rules about leaving the apartments clean?)

7.  No, there are no rules about that.  But it was also the last time that one of the elders would be in Mexico, he went home after the last change, and he left a bunch of stuff that he didn't need behind.

(Any interesting foods this week?)

8.  Nothing too exciting, just normal foods.  The tortas that we ate today were really delicious though.

(Are you getting to know the members well?)

9.  There are a few that we are getting to know well, but still not like Casablanca.

I still think that all the names that we have to learn is so hard.  And like you said everyone here has about 50 names, and they say it all so fast when you ask them.  So I still don't know many names, but all is coming along slowly here in Etla.

I love you all so much, I will talk to you next week.

Love,

Jordan

Here is a few pics of the week.  We spent a lot of time on Saturday trying to empty the really dirty baptismal font water and then fill it again for a baptism that the other elders had.  We had to take out a ton of water from the cistern with buckets so that the font would drain into the cistern.  Then we had to clean out the font and we bought some water to put into the font.  There is also a picture of Hermana Leyva, we arrived first and helped prepare some of the fruit we ate.  And then there is one picture of me at a spot that we stopped at for a quick second as we were biking.

Oh, and if you can fit some of my old guitar music in the package that you are going to send next, that would be cool.  Especially maybe the Peter Brienholt one.  I really want to try to re-learn and get better, I may buy a guitar here if I can.

Anyway, I love you all so much, have a great week.

 

 

                                     Elder Jimenez out of the hospital!  With Elders Jones and Call

                                                               Hermana Leyva, We love her!