Monday, July 16, 2012

Greetings from Tuxbread!

Greetings from Tuxbread!

Pan means bread so I call tuxpan tuxbread sometimes. Not sure if I already explained that but as all my friends know I'm notorious for repeating stories...
Before I do anything else I gotta write the new address for the mission office so here ya go…

Elder Price Dix Jarman
Misión México Xalapa
Ave Arco Vial Sur #738
Colonia Lomas Verdes
Xalapa, Veracruz 91098

Alrighty now if you want to write me you can send me letters. Now for the latest in the Adventures of the Two lost Gringos in Mexico.

This week was another fast one. It’s impossible to describe time in the mission. It just goes fast. This transfer is already almost over. Elder Hansen and I should be sticking together because of the new mission president and chances are nothing will change. My mom asked for more info on Elder Hansen so here’s a short bio:

Elder Alex James Hansen from Murray Utah. Parents recently moved to Texas so I guess he's from Texas now? He is like 6 foot with brown hair and glasses. He graduated in 2010 but is only a couple months older than me. He likes running and manual labor and Disney music. He is slightly OCD and sometimes it's really funny. Overall he's a good guy and a hard worker. Our personalities clash sometimes but the best thing I've learned in the mission is that its best to just apologize to someone within like 5 minutes of offending them so we get along well for the most part. He likes to describe books and when we're walking from appointment to appointment and there’s no one in the streets he will describe the plots of entire movies in detail to me. He also explained to me the whole Eragon series in detail because I didn’t read the last two books. Now I don't have to hahah. So that’s Elder Hansen!

As for the work this week it went pretty well. We're preparing a 2 people for baptism this coming weekend. Leticia is a teenager and her 72 year old Grandma Maria. Maria talks so fast you would swear she does cocaine. And she doesn’t remember a whole lot so it’s hard to teach her but yesterday we reviewed the baptismal interview questions and looks like she'll pass. She loves church and talks about how alegria comes over here when she comes. Sweet! So if all goes well we'll have 2 baptisms Saturday. This past week was highlighted by a conference in Poza Rica where we met our new presidente, Presidente Lopez and his esposa! They are so awesome! Presidente Lopez is funny and he's super loving and I already think he's the best. If you want to learn more about him he's got a profile on Mormon.org I think. We spent essentially the entire day in Poza Rica because the conference started 2 hours late and after there were interviews. I hung out with Elder Sulzen on the bus ride back to Tuxpan. He’s a funny dude. Look up his band on iTunes and tell me if they are any good. (They’re called Negative Zero)

I wrote a note to myself saying to describe Sundays in this letter because they are so stressful. We leave our house 2 hours before church starts and walk to our ward mission leader (Rogelio)'s house and hop in the back of his truck. Then we go all around our area loading all the investigators we can in his truck. Then we get to church and try to pair them up with people from the ward to sit with and try to show them their classes after and I try to keep the niños from screaming by showing them pictures from pamphlets and its all really stressful. Your day of rest is my day of stress. And why do we do all that? So these people will keep the Sabbath Day holy and come remember their Savior in his house. The message for this week is KEEP THE SABBATH DAY HOLY! Rest from your labors and grow spiritually. Approach the sacrament with specific plans of how you want to improve yourself during the week and then make the changes. Then go home from church and find ways to study, serve, and get closer to our Savior. The church has infinite amounts of materials to learn and grow each Sunday and use that day to visit less active members of the church instead of napping.

That whole speech was also a speech to myself because before the mission I was terrible at that. So if I fall back into watching basketball after the mission, somebody show me this letter.

This week I will hit the 6-month mark on the mission. It’s pretty crazy. Don't really have much to say about it except for the fact that its happening hahah. My observations from the first 6 months of my mission are these. The world is a crazy messed up place, but it is full of a lot of good people. There is no such thing as a bad person, just people whose circumstances have caused them to move away from God. I am not the best missionary, but I'm also not the worst. Mexico is nowhere near as scary as some people think. Spanish is a pretty cool language. God expects us all to struggle, to fight, to cry, and to feel alone at times. He lets us hit our limit sometimes, and then some. But the thing is, if we go past our limit of what we think we can endure, then we set a new one, and a new one, and so on. He doesn't take hard things away most of the time. He lets us see that we can push through hard things.

To finish up I want to give a big shout out to my boy B Fish for the mission call to Spain! You're gonna be great man! Also gotta congratulate Zach Taylor for getting married here soon. Can't believe that one hahah. You'll probably have kids when I get home. Craziness.

Another week of walking a lot and not contracting any diseases. Today I'm gonna go see a guy about making me an alligator skin scripture case!

Hasta la pasta!

Elder Jarman

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