Tapachula: Falling in Love

Hi, I'm falling in love with Tapachula, no big deal.  Not sure how I'm going to leave this area.  Our investigators are beautiful people but have got to start doing things.  Goodness.

So.  We have one family we love, they have two kids (10 and 5) that always call our names in the streets.  They promise every week to come to church and we thought we really had them coming this time but nothing :( My heart almost broke all through sacrament meeting as they didn't show up.

We met this new old woman we're teaching named America and she is HILARIOUS.  I don't know why.  She just widens her eyes at everything you say and says "Ooooh.  You're from America? Ooooh.  You two are always together? Ooooh." It's adorable.  She's super Catholic but we're going to break through.

This week we met a new couple from a reference and they are BEAUTIFUL people.  They are ready for the truth and felt the spirit so much and gave us ice cream and an umbrella! What?! Let's just get you some blessings real quick and be best friends forever.

Here's the thing about these people.  It's so hard to get from one place to another because everyone TALKS FOREVER.  The rule is, one person gets to talk for 25 minutes while the other smiles and nods and agrees with everything they say, and then you switch and they get to agree with everything you say, even if they're the opposite.  The other day we tried to pause at a member's house for two seconds to grab the number of a reference and she didn't take a breath for an HOUR.  60 minutes of us standing, nodding and trying everything possible to move away as she described the details of how she fell down the other day.  It was ADORABLE but a teensy bit frustrating.  Learning lots of patience as we try to stay on track.

I got dear elders from the Turner girls a few weeks ago and since I don't know how to mail still, I thought I'd answer some of their questions real quick for all to hear.  Kynli asked if I've tried any new foods.  If by new you mean pork fried in mayonnaise, yes!  It's not all super different but it's a lot of beans, fried meat, and a lot of people serve me "spaghetti" since I'm American, but it's spicy and much better than the American version.  This morning our friend Pamela made us breakfast and I don't know what any of it was called but it was delicious.  I'll send a picture next week.  No, Mexican food there is not anything like Mexican food here.  Except for some of the names.  But we do have a stack of tortillas at every single meal.

Faith ready go.  I've been reading the story of the army of Helaman.  Their faith is CRAZY.  Because these young boys did not doubt, they got to save their country, their families, liberty for the future generations, turn the tide of a war and conquer when they were outnumbered and outskilled.  They knew without a doubt, God will not suffer us to fall, and so not one of them did, and while they were at it, they were able to save everything.  This is death we're talking about with these boys, this is thousands of experienced Lamanites.  That is what faith can do.  It's so much more than believing, it's having a real trust and being willing to act and give something up.  Wow wow wow.

So I'm doing 100 pushups a day, woo.  Anyone who wants to join me in this feel free and we can have a buff party in a couple of years.

And I love you all.  Keep it up everyone, go conquer Lamanites or something.