Party Bus!

Hola mi familia!

 

I hope that everything has been going well for all of you guys.  Sounds like a fun trip that you were able to take to Philadelphia, and its good to hear that Braden and Bri also enjoyed their weekend and a large corn maze.  There is a lot of corn here, but nobody makes mazes out of it.

Things are going good for us up here and we had a good week.

 

 

(How was your week?  How are things with Elder Shaum?  Tell us about him.)

 

 

1.  Elder Shaum is a cool guy, we've been getting along really well.  He likes joking around is a funny guy, he is getting along great with the members and we are starting to already have a great relation with a few of them.  We also have had a lot of success this week with getting references from the members, we didn't do too much as far as us going out looking for them, only one was a reference that we asked for, but we now have some new investigators to start teaching thanks to the members here.  One brought her friend to church Sunday, so we were able to talk to her and meet her there, and we put an appointment to go visit her. 

We also had a family approach us in the street while we stopped to chat with a member.  They came up to us and asked us to stop by their house, they gave us their direction and left without talking too much, but we went by to visit them.  It turns out that the mom and one daughter are members who were baptized two years ago in Oaxaca, but moved down here a year and a half ago and haven't gone to church since.  They want to start going again, and the husband as well as two sons aren't members.  So we are going to start teaching them, though they didn't come to church yesterday, so we will see what happens there.  But it was a really good week, guess Elder Shaum has a lot of faith or something, because all of this didn't happen before.  but it was neat to see the trust and the hand of the Lord this week in helping us find a good amount of people to teach.

 

 

(Do you still live the the DL's?   Is Elder Lule still one of them or have they changed recently?)

 

 

2.  Elder Lule got transferred as well, he went to Puerto Escondido.  Its the ZLs that we live with.  So right now we live with Elder Webb and Elder Monson, who are the ZLs.  But they need to find a new house to move into.  And ya... in the end President didn't move the district leader here with the ZLs.  The DL is in Santa Maria, but Presidente wants to move them here.  Elder Lule predicted that I get special changed out of here in the middle of this cambio in order to move the DL here.  But I don't know what will happen, guess we´ll see.  I'm the only one here that really knows the members and area, so that may be why the DL wasn't moved here yet.

Elder Monson towers over me, and is a skyscraper next to the little Mexicans, he redshirted for Utah last year and is a big basketball player.  He is 2 meters and 8 centimeters tall, I think that's two inches short of seven feet, or something like that, but he is big.  But it is funny to see him among the members.  Elder Webb is a cool guy too, he is from Idaho.

 

 

(Bri is wondering if you've had armadillo again or any other interesting foods?

 

 

3.  No, we didn't have any interesting foods this week, and no more armadillo.  Though today we got to eat some tacos made with really fresh queso ranchero as well as chipotles in handmade tortillas.  It was pretty good stuff.

 

 

(How many people are members there?  Are there a lot of inactive members and do you do anything to contact them?

 

 

4.  We don't have much of a way to find the inactive members, but we have a few that members will tell us about that we visit.  There are about 130 members that are active or active-ish, we will have between 80 to 100 members at church on Sundays.  Addresses are horrible here, especially in H3. where it is extremely disorganized, this contributes to making it difficult finding and teaching less actives.  I don't know how many members are actually on list, though I bet it is a pretty high number.

 

 

(Do you need me to send you another memory card?)

 

 

5. No, it should be fine, I can buy one here if I end up needing another one, they sell them in the majority of the internet places.

 

 

(Have you gone running again?  Do you exercise much in the morning?0

 

 

6.  No, we haven't done any more running and also no, I haven't really done exercise in the morning.

 

 

(How are things with Alan and Jaciel and Jacibet?)

 

 

7.  We haven't been able to teach Alan much, he left to Juchitan this week and didn't get a hold of him when he came back on Friday.  His family and also he is from Juchitan.  So we are planning on keeping it up with him, but we will see if we can ever get him to come to church, I think he is just too.. I'm not sure how to say it in English, but, its like he feels ashamed or embarrassed or just kinda worried about going.

Jaciel and Jacibet are awesome, I'm amazed at how much they have changed and how they are still excited for their baptism.  President is supposed to call us today to let us know what the area authorities said about their situation, but I doubt President will have remembered.  So I wrote him in my letter to let us know, so hopefully sometime this week he reads my letter and gives us a call.  Jaciel and Jacibet as well as ourselves and many members are really anxious to find out when they are going to be able to be baptized, but for now, they are doing really well and are really pilas.

 

 

(What is the most interesting thing that happened this week?)

 

 

8.  Well... Today we went on a tour with the Hermano Juan.  He drives a big tour party bus, though we kept the party part on the low down this morning, because we are missionaries.  But he took us around to some viewpoints over Santa Cruz Bay and also to a beach club by Chaue Bay.  We also stopped and that is when we ate the tacos today that were really good.  But it was really fun.  Huatulco is just a really nice place, it really is a paradise.  I'm excited to come back, but it is going to be extremely crazy during spring break, I doubt it will seem quite as nice, because for now, all the bays, beaches, resorts and everything are really abandoned and all to ourselves.  But anyway, we had a good time checking out the beautiful area we have.

 

But anyway, it was a really good week and everything is going great for us down here in the beautiful bays of Huatulco.  I'm still not sure how everything is going to work out when we come back to visit Oaxaca, I just gave it a bit of thought today, but I dunno what to do or how.  But I probably won't think too much about that still.  Its crazy to think that B is almost going home, he wrote me quickly today and he said it was his last pday as a full time missionary, that's pretty crazy.

 

But ya, I hope that you are all doing well and are all happy.  I love you all sooo much.  I will talk to you later!

 

Love,

Jordan

 

 

Well, I sent some photos from two different trips.  One member took us out to see the lighthouse one night when we went to visit him and get to know him, so we went really quickly.  And the other ones are from our tour today witht he Hermano Juan.  It was really fun, we went to Santa Cruz, and to Chaue, the two closest beaches and Bays.