It’s A Lot Different Here Fo Sho

Monday, June 6, 2011 2:03 PM

Hey family and friends,

Another week has gone by again. Can you believe it´s June already!! The week has been a good learning opportunity and I´m grateful for the opportunities and experiences that our Heavenly Father is blessing me with.

First off, the area...man. It´s confusing. Another Elder in the zone described the layouts of the cities in our zone like this- they took a big sheet of paper and decided to make a layout of where they would make the roads, houses etc, they took a big spoon full of spaghetti, flung it on the paper....and there´s your layout......Absolutely no order to it at all haha. And yes, it is very hilly. It is rare to be walking on flat ground here. We´re either going up a hill or going down it. We had to go up about 200 stairs one day to get to where we were going....made me feel like Sam and Frodo going up those crazy steep stairs in Lord of the Rings haha. That being said, every night I arrive to the apartment exhausted and ready for bed. In this picture, I´m in the area of Los Arcos there, and after we walked up a big hill you could see EVERYTHING. the big buildings behind me in the distance to the right is Chapultapec I think....DF is to the left of the picture and you can´t see it there in the pic....but we could see all the big buildings from DF off in the distance as well.

 

As for transportation here it is a little different as well. In Metepec,we always took buses everywhere we needed to go. Here we take what are called conveys...They work the same as buses- you pay and it goes on a route and drops you off where you want to be dropped off, just smaller. It´s like one of those 14-seater vans.  But the work here is great...tons of people who are willing to listen and tons who are ready to accept the gospel and be baptized. This week we were able to help Porfirio be baptized (see picture). Our ward has 4 missionaries here, just like we did in Metepec. The other two missionaries are in my District as well as the two in Los Arcos. The other two in our ward had a baptism (see picture) as well and Los Arcos had 2! so 4 in the District...not too bad. I was able to go on exchanges (I go in there area and one of them works with my comp in my area) to do some interviews....A little nervous my first time...but really it´s basically just like teaching a lesson, just without your companion...kinda cool. I did 4 interviews this week.

This is Elder Torres and I with the other 2 Elders in our ward and the person they helped get baptized. And the other picture was something I saw that was just too funny. Look at the house...how do you get in? looks like you have to jump or get a ladder or something because the door is pretty high up there haha. Poor planning on that one for sure.

As for the package...who knows if its gotten here yet because we haven’t gotten mail in our zone yet. Tomorrow at the district meeting we should get mail and on Wednesday I think that I´m going to be over at the office for a training for all the District Leaders so I´ll be able to check there as well. Hopefully it comes...the suspense is killing me cuz I don’t even know what´s in it yet. [mmm, ya, maybe he shouldn’t get it after all…except for the Jimmer jersey, it wasn’t all that exciting!]

Oh...new food experience. Had some gorditas today....they’re wonderful. It´s like a fried tortilla that’s split open in the middle (like the fajita pita thing from Jack in the Box kinda) and they stuff it with whatever you want. Mine was stuffed with pork, salsa, onions and cilantro...it was great. I´ll add that to the list of foods that you guys definitely need to try haha.

Well, thank you for the emails and for letting me know how things are going back home (Go Mavericks!). I know that this gospel is true and I´m so grateful for the opportunity that I am having to learn and grow in this new area with new responsibilities...I am finding myself getting lost in the work more than ever. I love it. I love preaching the Gospel and seeing people´s lives change in the process. It makes everything worth it..all the hills, sweat and being constantly tired. It´s what moves me keep working and keep focusing. It´s what makes me get up at 6:20 every morning...knowing that the message that I share with others truly can change their life, because the message that we share as missionaries is not our message, it´s the message of our Heavenly Father. I love this work and I love and miss you all.

Have a great week.

And this is my joy.

Elder Peacock