17 Months!

Hola mi familia!

17 months is a long time, if I were a misionera and not a misionero, I would be going home in one month! Good thing I still have seven months, and not just one. I know you want me back, but I want to stay longer here. It reminds me that a there was a young woman leaving on a mission when I was in Casablanca, and Elder Pimentel kept laughing saying that she wasn't on her mission yet, but would leave and get back before I got back. But I'm happy to be here, that was just funny to think about.

I hope that everything goes well with girls camp. There is EFY this week for the wards in Oaxaca, its only the second time that Mexico has had EFY, last year was the first one ever. I know that its something really stressful for you and the leaders of all the activities that go on, but its a blessing for the youth to have activities like EFY, girls camp, high adventure and APTC. Braden will love it, that was one really neat experience that they should start to do down here in Oaxaca.

I'm also starting to hear a few people talking about some exciting soccer games coming up for Mexico. Has the Olympics already started? I overheard some people on the bus to Aurrera today and I just remembered that this year is an Olympics year. Just curious, but I will move onto the questions for now.


(I saw that my 2nd package arrived, so I'm assuming that the 1st one did as well.  Did the pants fit?)


1. I have received two packages recently, but you knew that I already got a package, the most recent was the one with the pants and the shirt, I hope that that one is the second package you are talking about, cuz I haven't received another one. Anyway, the pants fit me fine, the charcoal ones feel a little bit tight, but I might just be getting fat, jaja, hopefully I go to the Istmo next week to lose some weight... oh, hope I didn't just curse myself. But the brown pants fit perfectly, so its all good.

Quick note, this area has a history, for the last year, not a single missionary that has left Donaji has gone to any other place than the Istmo, so it may be likely that I go there, unless I break the curse. I hope.


(I think the cambio's are next week?  Any feeling on if you'll change?  Do you think the president knows you have already served with Elder Carrasco?  Do you think either of you will move?)



2. Well, as usual, we know nothing, and we won't know anything about the changes until 10:00 at night. When Elder Butler left they didn't tell us until 10:30 Sunday night, and he left for the Istmo Monday morning, hopefully that doesn't happen but it doesn't seem to concern any of the leaders about how rude it is to do that to us. I think that I will be leaving, because it seems that President knows we were already together, I guess there is a chance that we stay the same, but really, who knows? I don't want to leave Donaji, this area is really cool, the members are great and the ward is really helpful. I set a record yesterday in my mission for the greatest amount of investigators in Church, sadly its a small 10 people, I'm sure other places have more, but for here in Oaxaca, that's great. It was a stressful Sunday trying to take care of all of those investigators and all that. But anyway, Donaji is great, but I think that I will probably leave, but it will always just be a guess.


(We loved the story about Alejandro!  Did you have any success with him and his family this week?)


3. No, we aren't going to have to much progress with Alejandro and his family. They are really nice and a great family, but Alejandro just has too many ideas in his head to get them out. And Alejandro won't let us teach his family without him, not something we really want to do, but he always goes off on some other subject and trying to show us how it is that other ideas and churches can be true as well, and he won't let us get through a lesson very well. Alejandro really doesn't have a church right now, and he isn't interested in joining one. We are going to try a little bit more, I'm going to teach him and his daughters English today, we´ll see how that goes. Their family said that they enjoyed the church, but sadly they didn't come this Sunday, but we will see them this afternoon and see whats going on with them.


(I think that Edilma's baptism was scheduled for yesterday?  Did it happen?)



4. Edilma is still excited for her baptism, just we have hardly been able to teach her, so her date fell through. She has been really busy with school and with her work and so we cant teach her, she said she wont be here this week either. She will get baptized, just probably not for another 3 or 4 weeks. She did come to church yesterday though. So all is well with her, we just need her bosses to stop calling her out to work, she should be on vacations starting last week, but still has been working.


(How has your health been?  How are the mosquitoes during the rainy season?)



5. Everything is going well with my health. And yes, there are plenty of mosquitoes for everyone down here in the rainy season. I don't foresee a shortage of them anytime soon. They always enjoy biting my ankles during lessons, it always distracts me a bit, and its hard to not distract from the lesson and defend my feet at the same time. I put some bug spray on, but it seems to not help too much, because at least one always gets through. But oh well, cant do too much about that.


(Do you have interviews with the President before every cambio, or with the ZL's before the cambio?)



6. There are never any interviews with LZs, and we have interviews every 3 months with the Presidente. We had interviews at the start of this cambio, and the interviews before that were when I was in Comitancillo, also with Elder Carrasco.

We also have the investigator Hortencia, she is doing great and wants to be baptized, she made the commitment yesterday to get working faster on her divorce so that she can get married and baptized, we´ll see how that goes, but her baptism is still a ways down the road, we predict another 3 months or so.

I'm not sure what else I was going to say, but... there isn't anything else for now. So I guess I will talk to you all later. Thank you for the package mom, I'm going to enjoy the jam and peanut butter this week, as well as the popcorn, I love those things, we really need microwaves down here so I can eat popcorn more. But that won't happen.

Anyway, I love you all so much. good luck with all of the activities that are going on, hope that you are all enjoying the summer. Talk to you next week!

Love,
Jordan