Hola From Mexico

Awesome week this week! But first off I'd like to apologize for all the bad spelling and grammer in my letters... Spanish keyboards are a little different so it's harder to backspace. Also spell check is in Spanish so it underlines everything I type and because I don't read in English anymore I forget what proper English looks like. But anyway, back to what's important, me. 

This week was great! We kept praying to find a big family and God finally answered our prayers! We found a huge family of 11 this week! Right now we are only teaching 6 of them but the others will come around. 

Monday night we had a FHE with a less active family in the ward and they gave us dough to make our own flour tortillas and they where delicious. 

A picture of the tortillas we made.

But Tuesday morning we found out that we used all our gas making tortillas and no longer could have a hot shower. But all is well because today, one week later, we have money for gas and can have hot showers again. But this whole week we just put water in cups, heated it up in the microwave and used that... really fun... 

We had divisones this week and I went with Elder Gonzalez to his area and that was fun, nothing too exciting happened that day. 

New up date on packages, if you want to send one, put a list of what's inside on the outside of the box, so my mission president doesn't get arrested for taking somthing illegal across the boarder. If it's something like candy or food, just write missionary supplies but everything else you can list.

So I met someone this week and I think im in love. Her name is Calentador. And she isnt actually a person.. The word calentador means heater, and that's what she is.. a heater.. But she is beautiful and really warms the room whith her smile. 

Me and my new girlfriend.

TIME FOR THE BIG NEWS. I decided to half way  follow my dreams of becoming a word famous singer/tapdancer and joined a chior. SO i get to sing every week with a bunch of missionaries and other people and its great. The only problem is that we don't tapdance so I'll have to practice that on my own time.. But the choir is amazing because its the whole stake, and in our stake there is an English ward so I heard and had my first conversation in English in three months. Absolutely beautiful. Also I love to sing, I'm a bass if anyone was wondering. 

Last thing on the list. If anyone wants to get in the Christmas spirit with a delicious fruity drink you're in luck because I know exactally what you need. There is a Mexican drink here called Ponche and it's amazing. Its like a cider, but it has fruit in it and is delicious.

Well that's all for this week. I hope everyone at home is doing well. The house looks amazing Dad. I bet Katelyn will love it when she comes home, I'm glad Paige still loves me. Hayden hasn't written me yet, so I'm assuming he is dead... And I think that's it.. Love you all.  

Love, 

Elder St John

Christmas cookies because Thanksgiving doesn't exist here.

El Solo Gringo

A young boy in the ward was baptized and after we had cake.

This week was pretty good! not too much happened but it was good! Spanish still is a little hard and I have forgotten what good English sounds like.. Today I tried talking with an American Elder in our area and it was harder than it should have been.. I swear, how do people learn more than two languages and tell them apart. It's crazy. I'm learning one and can't even.  I'm switching between Spanish and English all the time so my main language here is Spanglish... 

But something cool happened this Friday. There is this girl in our area we are teaching and she is going to be baptized in two weeks.  When we first asked her who she wanted to baptize her like 1 1/2 weeks ago, she didn't know.  Then her mom asked me and my comp how many people we had baptized.  My companion said he had baptized two and I said zero. And she said, "Good, you'll do it to me, and then whispered to me that Paula wanted me to do it originally.. So I get to baptize her!! Woot woot, she is awesome, she is 9 years old and we call her menonita because she has light skin, like lighter than me... but both her parents are dark.. But anyway that will be cool!

This week my companion left me alone with this young couple in their house for an hour while he was in the bathroom. And I expected it to be super awkward, BUT it wasn't because in  that moment I was blessed with the gift of tongues and talked to the family for a whole hour, and understood like eighty percent which was a huge blessing because I hate feeling awkward. So yeah, that's the language update. 

Spiritual experience: I went to seminary this Friday--me and my comp made up half the class--but it was great! The class was in the house of a member.  This member is a single mother with no priesthood in the house. This member said that she could feel something different whenever we were with her, and then she asked me to bless her house... So I gave her house a blessing. It was really hard to get on the roof so i could put my hands on its head, but it all worked out and I gave a great blessing.. in English... but it was still great and its the spirit that counts. 

Sorry there wasn't much to say this week.. I'll try to have more things to say next week! 

Love you all so much and pray for you all every day!

Love,

Elder St John

Me about to jump the grand canyon.

Me being a child again.

Mexico?

I got on the roof and looked like a super hero.

This week has been pretty good! a lot of ups and downs this week.

This Saturday we had a training meeting with the President and that was good, but he made everyone turn in their iPods or mp3 players and that was sad. He told us that there are some rules that we won't understand and it's important to obey them. So I'm trying to look for the silver lining in this, i may have to look hard but I'm sure it will be there. 

So this week was FREEZING at least Tuesday through Thursday... but it's all good because I found a sweater in the house and was warm. But also this Saturday I bought some more warm clothes. And of course Saturday it got warm again... But it's not important because it will be cold again. Maybe...

Elder Moya and my face on how we feel about the weather. 

Lots of good lessons this week! Elder Moya doesn't talk as much anymore so I do a lot of the talking, which is good! It helps me learn Spanish easier and it's always good to practice. I sent grandma a little more about this and how it was a baptism of fire, and how in the MTC I learned that there is no growth in a comfort zone and no comfort in a growth zone, and judging by how uncomfortable I've felt I've probably been growing a lot. 

The moon this week was rad.  

Me casually drawing Jesus on the car of a member while we wait for church to begin.

So we have anothing baptism date! Paula Molina, a 9 year-old-girl who is adorable. So we are teaching her so she can be prepared to be baptized on the 29th of this month along with one other person, Angel.

We did some service this week, if I can call it that.. We chopped wood for a family here, but mostly just broke their axe and hammer... so im not sure how well of a service that was..

Chopping Wood

A Beautiful Sunset

Spiritual thought for this week: 3rd Nephi 2:7 [I'm not sure but perhaps he typed the reference wrong.]  I shared this after eating with a member family this week. It's a really amazing scripture, because God is always with us, even though at times it may feel like He isn't here, He always is. When I shared this I compared it to a mother teaching her child to walk. If the mother wants her child to learn to walk, she can't hold his hand his whole life, even though she is afraid her child will fall, she has to let him learn on his own. This is just like God letting us learn in this life. We were sent here to learn and grow, and we can't do that if God carries us the whole way through; He has to let us ¨fall¨ sometimes so that we can learn to ¨walk¨ or grow. So if you ever feel like you're alone, just remember that this is God trusting that you can do it.

Love and pray for you all lots. 

Love,

Elder St John 

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Me in my casual preaching outfit with a Book of Mormon. 

The title to this email is a little misleading.. because they don't have dia de los muertos where I'm at, so sorry for the lie... But this week was pretty awesome.

The lessons and everything have been going pretty well this week, our investigators seem to be progressing which is awesome. And I now have 3 drawings of myself from the kids of the families we teach and they are awesome. And we also had 6 people at church this week which was awesome as well! 

We also got a new washing machine so we don't have to walk for an hour with our clothes to get to a laundromat and pay 100 pesos for a taxi and the washing. Which is good. And we should be getting our house sprayed this week so no more spiders! The weather here is finally cooling down which is also awesome. It's perfect down here. It's like Utah in the Fall now. But also that means I'm in trouble.. because I was really dumb before my mission and thought I could handle it here and that it wouldn't get cold.. I have a lack of warm stuff. So Dad I will be using my Chase card a little more so I can buy some more winter-appropriate clothes..

But Friday was Halloween and was really spooky. I got Grandma's [St. John] package and it was perfect. I got it Thursday and it was full of halloween stuff so we decorated our house and it was 10-10 spooky. I'll send pics. 

Some pics of the house.

This week we ran out of food and money so all we had to eat for 7 days was half a loaf of bread and the rest of the snacks I had from the package Dad sent last week. It's just a good thing the members here are nice enough to feed us every day, and also because it's a rule.. but we have money now and it feels great! Every month my companion and I get 1,200 pesos each which is a little less than 100 dollars each, but it goes a long way here. I usually spend about 250 or 300 pesos a week so it lasts well.

Not much left to say this week.. We got some candy while we where preaching on Halloween and that was fun, even though every candy here has chilies in it. I'm starting to get used to it..

Spanish is coming along really well.  Elder Moya says all I need is an accent and I'll be fluent. So I just need to eat more peppers and I'll be set.

Love you all so much!

Love, 

Elder San Juan