This might not be the best letter ever because I don't remember this week very well. Sometimes that happens once you get to Monday. We had a bit of a rough one at first but are doing awesome now, aside from the raging diarrhea that has taken hold of one of us (I won't mention names, but it's not me.) I figure I can say that because I'm in Mexico and here TMI doesn't exist. In fact, you can never give too much information about your personal issues or bodily functions even to a stranger in the store. It's kind of nice, cuz they're all just so friendly and personal with everyone. And at the same time, kind of disgusting and way too much sometimes.
Our time is taken up a lot by helping the sisters, this week we did exchanges with the ward next door, Jovel. They are SO AWESOME. I learned so much from being with Hermana Alejandro. She’s this cute little girl with deadpan sarcasm. She is one of the ONLY latinas I know that speaks fluent sarcasm. And it is so funny. She's also super diligent and a little fireball. And her companion, Sister Baker, is tall, white and from Utah and is PERFECT. She is the nicest human I have ever met, super positive, always laughing, crazy, loving and perfect. Yesterday was her birthday and today we're going to go for Pepe's Pizza (it's really called PP's Pizza but that's how it's pronounced here and since y'all are Americans I decided not to make that too weird). It is the BEST PIZZA ON THE PLANET. It's not even pizza, it's like a huge baked and buttered bread thing with carmelized pineapple and ham on top all covered in beautiful sauce. And it's FREE! I mean today it is. Because one day our district leader told us if we got 140 contacts within two days he'd buy us any pizza we want. That was taken seriously, and we actually had a lot of fun contacting and learned a lot talking to everyone. Since Baker helped with one of those days during exchanges and it's her birthday, we're celebrating our victory together.
Tomorrow we're going to Comitan about two hours away to do four or five days of exchanges with two other companionships down there. And, sadly our sick Hermana Westbrook is getting sent home because they just can't help her here :/ She's got a disc out of place in her back and we're all pretty sad, she's a good friend of mine who came with me to the mission. So they sent us a newish girl from Guatemala whose companion is also sick, and she is cute as heck!
Last night we ate dinner with the Lopez family, our perfect investigators. They told us their whole life story and it was beautiful, and we kept pushing for them to decide! They've actually already decided, they KNOW they'll get baptized, they're so faithful and ecstatic about the gospel, they're just being silly. They know neither of us have a ton of time left on the mission and have already told us we have to come back for their baptism because that would just be wrong if we weren't here. RIGHT? That's funny, GET BAPTIZED. They're just ready. We just want them to be even HAPPIER and get to the temple quick, they BELONG there! I've never seen a family who belongs there more. Man.
We do have other investigators but we're just a little obsessed with them right now and as I said, hardly in our area. We found a family of ten that is very interested and we're going to try to get them there this week, and gave a man a church tour this week and he felt the spirit so strongly and said, I want this. And accepted baptism on the spot. His name's Francisco. I wasn't actually there though.
Tons of people speak Tzotzil We decided to learn it, partly because one of the companionships of girls in our charge is in a Tzotzil speaking area and we thought it might help them. And partly because like, kushia bontom. That's how you say “How is your heart?" :) There's no real official way to spell anything because it's not a written language, although there is a Book of Mormon. I've been reading it which is pretty cool. I don't understand anything but am doing better with the weird gutteral pronunciation.
There are a few Tzotzil people in the ward, but all of them speak spanish too and they all get along great. This place is just pure.
Speaking of that, there is this AWESOME couple in the ward, the wife grew up speaking Tzeltal, ran away at 7 years old to not get forced into marriage, found a job and taught herself Tzotzil and Spanish and now knows some English too because she married an American who is now our mission leader, and they're both HEADED YOUR WAY today! They're going to Salt Lake for two months to see the kids and I sent a little something, so she might be calling one of these days, I said you could come pick it up or just figure it out over there, you know. But I hope you get a chance to talk to her because she is amazing. She's in Relief Society and once she realized there was no bishop's storehouse in Mexico, she started creating her own and is now on a pathway to making every sister in the ward independent with both a personal and ward food storage that increases every week. SO COOL.
I love you guys a LOT! It's been crazy, a lot different from the missionary life I've ever had. Sometimes I miss being able to teach and be a good diligent efficient obedient missionary, but it's been more like on-call babysitter, travel agent or whatever. But I love it all, it's just new.
Welp, we're off to have more adventures in other places! Love you a lot and will be praying for you! Please pray for the Lopez family, Hermana Westbrook and Francisco!!
LOVE YOU!!!
Flipping hair early in the morning. Who needs a hair dryer?
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