Hola mi familia!
Things are going good down here in Huatulco, it was kind of a rough week, without much success, but everything is good. How are you all doing up there? Its crazy to hear that summer break is already over. Hope that Braden and Bri are ready, it seems like the summer went by really fast, but down here, it is always summer it seems, it never gets truly cold. People here know what the words like spring, summer, fall, and winter mean, but they don't really understand it as we do, because the weather totally changes, I always enjoy telling people what its like when there is snow everywhere. But there is still time before the snow hits you guys, I only have a quarter of my mission left after this week, that's scary, I'll be going home this winter to freeze to death in the cold dry climate of Utah. Pretty crazy. Anyway, sorry that summer is ending., its still hot and humid here, even though it has been raining pretty hard in the last few days. We´ve been getting lots of water, I guess there was a hurricane that came over México from the Gulf? That's what we heard anyway... but ya, I'll move on to the questions.
(I think I found that big rock in your picture last week. It's a beautiful area! Do you eat with that family every week? How do you travel around to all those places? Do you take the bus? I can't believe you walk, it seems really far.)
1. Although we are in a branch, there are enough members for us to eat with a different person each day of the month! Just like in Donaji, its kinda crazy, but the branch is a really cool branch, the members are great. Although the majority of the days, we eat together as 4 missionaries, not separate, the majority of the members are in the middle class parts of town, which is the LZs part, we have only a few in our area. We walk around, it really is terrible walking up to H3, but we will do it. When we went out to Tangalunda for the comida that day (though we ate there again this week, the food was really good again, a really nice family) we went in a taxi. It cost $40. Then the hermano drove us back to centro.
( I also think I found your apartment, but it doesn't have the street view, so I couldn't see it really well. Do you tract around all of those apartments? Do you do much tracting there?)
2. Ugh, we have done a lot of tracting, I'm not sure which part is worse to do it in. The apartments have never let us in, and its extremely boring to contact, though the nice part is that the stairwells give us shade, so we aren't in the sun frying. H3 is really hard to contact, but a few people are willing to listen. I have already contacted almost all of the area worth contacting, H3, H2, and the apartments where we live. The other parts are like Santa Cruz and I don't know the name of the other rich part closer to our home, but there is even less success over there. We are lacking investigators, we got a lot in the first two weeks, and we lost a lot this week, people who just aren't really interested.
Its interesting here because people see us differently, in other parts of Oaxaca, its different to see two white people in shirts and ties, but there isn't too much of a problem with it. People, especially in the poorer parts like H3, see us differently here. Because all the people here work at hotels, beaches, restaurants, stores, etc. where lots of rich people are enjoying vacations while they are working hard. So they see two white guys in shirt and ties walking among their homes and just don't want anything to do with us usually. Its hard to tract here, but we have no other way to find new investigators, we have a talent show coming up on Friday and we are hoping to have people bring their friends and family. Hopefully we will find some new people to teach through that, that's the plan anyway.
(Is the baptismal date for Nelly and Paola still on for the 19th? Any new dates or investigators?)
3. In good news, yes, the baptismal date is still set for this Sunday, so we are hoping to have everything go well. We have to figure out a way to get the baptismal interview to work, because Nelly is deaf and mute it will be kinda tough to make sure that she understands everything, and the elder that does it needs to understand her, but everything will work out. So we are really excited, and Nelly and Paola are really excited too.
We didn't really get too many more investigators, it was kind of a slow week for finding people. We also had a heartbreaking lesson in which one of our investigators, Alejandra, decided that she wanted to wait for a long time before continuing to listen to us and get to know the church, so we lost her. It was a sad week, but next week should be better, especially with a baptism.
(What's the funnest thing you did this week?)
4. Well... on our way down from H3 Saturday afternoon, there were some kids playing soccer on the cement slopes. We didn't have any appointments and they had been challenging us to a game every day that we pass by there and we've never had time to play them, so we decided to play a quick game to 2. It was 5 on 2, and the hill there is not small, its pretty steep. It started to sprinkle rain as we started, slightly sandy cement wet a bit with water on a slope. I let a kid get by me and score, so we were down 1 to nothing. I should also mention that Elder Price played football, he´s kinda competitive. So he decided it was time to even things up a bit, so I gave him a quick pass and he was winding his way down the cement sidewalks, weaving in and out of little Mexican kids. He was going for the goal at full speed, it was just him and the goalie. But the 3 foot tall goalie came rushing out to intercept Elder Price and went down low to stop the ball, Elder Price executed an excellent shot over the kids head, the kid was down on the ground, and Elder Price was going to fast, instead of just creaming the kid, he jumped up over him while consecutively scoring the goal. He came down and slid to the ground and collided with one of Mexico´s favorite construction materials, cement. It could have been bad, but it was pretty funny, then the rain started coming down and so the game was postponed, but at least we tied. My comp got a bad scrape on his back and hit his head pretty hard, I was kinda worried at first, but everything is fine. We are gonna play more carefully next time.
(How were the meals that you guys all cooked up last week? Are you learning some cooking skills from Elder Chan? By the way, where is Elder Chan from? Sounds like a Japanese name, but you said he's going home next change to the Yucatan.)
5. I'm learning a bit, but its just too hard to cook while on a mission, there just isn't any time to do it. But we are pulling it off okay in the mornings. Its been fun to cook with him. And thank you for asking if he was Japanese. We love telling everyone that he is Chinese, but no, Chan is a Mayan last name. The Mayans have some weird last names, like Chan. one of the slightly normal ones, though it isn't Spanish at all.
(We were having a conversation the other day about all the different types of food that we eat here in the US. It just seems so strange that the people in Mexico REALLY only stick with tortillas, rice, beans etc. They don't seem to be very diverse at all. Is it just tradition for them or is that the only kind of foods they can get there?)
6. Ive always wondered the same things, its great to live in the US where there is so much diversity, we have all kinds of foods and everything up there. But people are just happy eating tortillas every single meal that they eat. I sometimes have wondered why they don't eat diverse foods as much as we do, but oh well. Here in Huatulco, there is more diversity and nice restaurants (like the Italian one) because its a tourist place. So we have been enjoying things that you cant normally find in other parts of Oaxaca. Especially the Dr Pepper, we got Elder Lule and Chan hooked on Dr Pepper now, most people here don't like it, though there still isn't any rootbeer, that's what I really want. We cooked up some garlic bread this week with spaghetti, it was good. In the meals this week, my favorite was one that an hermana who works as chef in a nice hotel (Quinta Real I think) made us fish and steak with a cream of mushroom sauce over it with rice, it was really good. I also had some good pozole, and I cant remember right now what else we ate, but we almost always eat some pretty good stuff. With the exception of the last Sunday (not yesterday) I forgot to tell you about that. We ate Mondongo last Sunday, look it up to see what we ate. It wasn't terrible, but it was weird, and it wasn't prepared very well, it didn't have all of the good tasting ingredients it should have either, just the "fun" ingredients.
(The Mexican men's soccer team won gold in the Olympics. Did you hear much about that?)
7. A few people have commented on it, I heard that Mexico also took bronze for tae-kwon-do, so a few people felt proud of their country, but the majority haven't said too much about it. I bet in the city there was a lot more excitement over it, but who knows.
I noticed you didn't like my Spanish last week, you are supposed to be learning it. You have to speak it to come back here to Oaxaca. Though I did notice that I mad several mistakes in my Spanish, and the translator didn't understand us walking by the pool in the mornings, but oh well, you got the point. Its sad walking by the pool every morning, and night too. jaja. It just sits out our window taunting us.
Once again the computer is being dumb, well see if I can solve it to send some pictures, if not, then maybe next time. But I hope that you all have a great week and that you are ready for school to start, I'm not, but I don't have to go yet! But anyway, love you all, I ll talk to you later.
Love,
Jordan
FYI...I looked up Mondongo to see exactly what it was that Jordan ate. Here is the Wikipedia definition:
Sopa de mondongo is a soup made from slow-cooked diced tripe (the cleaned stomach of a cow) and, vegetables such as bell peppers, onions, carrots, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic or root vegetables originating from Latin America and the Caribbean.
YUM YUM!
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