Me Gustan Las Gringas.

Elder de Olarte and me. 

So this week was pretty cool! We found a few new people to teach which was exciting. But we need to work on getting them to church. But little by little we will get them to the truth. 

Tuesday I ate an entire Habanero pepper and it was delicous, and my mouth burned for like 10 minutes, but it was worth it. 

Wednesday was just the normal day of contacting and teaching. But it was a pretty good day!

Thursday I ate something called a Gringa, which is a quesadilla with meat and other ingredients and it was delicious. It is also what they call girls from the United States so I felt funny asking for one.

This is a gringa. Best thing ever. 

Friday was also just a normal day. 

Saturday was a good day, because we got to visit a few people we hadn't seen in a while, like a recent convert, and he was glad we visited him. 

Sunday we watched the lunar eclipse and ate Indian food. 

The super moon with the Elders and Garhett.

My Indian food.

The beautiful sunset in Juarez on the cotton fields.

So it was a pretty good week all in all. I'm very excited for conference next week and I hope you all watch it too! 

Love you all.

Love,

Elder St John

LA INDEPENDENCIA MEXICANA

This last week was Mexican Independence Day, and I celebrated by eating pasole, and that's about it.. considering we can't use fireworks, or go to parties or things like that, I'd say i did everything I could to feel the Mexican spirit. 

This week was pretty good.  We found a few new investigators, which was very exciting.  One is a family of four who live pretty close to us and sell food outside of their house. They are awesome and have a ton of questions. 

There was a baptism in the district on Saturday and I interviewed the person who was going to be baptized and he was awesome. HE told me his WHOLE conversion story and it was incredible. I won't tell you the story, but I'll just tell you that God does not cease to be a God of miracles. 

Friday night we had a "Noche Mexicana" and we had enchiladas and gorditas and a bunch of other Mexican food and music and we brought an investigator and it was really fun. I drank more Horchata than you could imagine. 

Sunday we ate lunch with a young marriage of recent converts. And they gave us crickets to eat so I ate them with my ice cream and they were pretty good to be honest.

But all in all it was a good week! And I hope you all have a good week this week! 

Love,

Elder San Juanito

This is the cricket that I ate.

One Year in Mexico

So I don't have a year in Mexico yet, actually I think Wednesday will be my one year in Mexico mark. But it's pretty cool to think that I haven't stepped foot in the United States in a year. That's a long time. But to sum this year up I would just say it was a big fiesta. I learned Spanish, got sunburnt, froze to death, I've met like 1000 people. I've eaten 200 tacos and 300 burritos. I've grown a mustache and changed my name to Ernesto. So I'd say not much has changed. It was a great year, and I look forward to my last year in Mexico. 

This week we contacted a lot. We found a new part of our area which was cool, so now we have more places to meet people. And also two new elders opened another area in the ward. So the ward now has 7 missionaries (the sisters are in a trio) and in my district there are now 11 of us. Best and biggest district ever. 

Elder De Olarte keeps on getting better and better, he is a really good elder, and I always learn new things from him. 

Satelite is an awesome ward and I'm super glad to be here. I hope you are all happy and well at home! I love you all!

Love,

Elder St John

Just to make his email longer I will add a bit of what transpired between him and me today:

cc:  Did you get to watch the Mexico City Temple dedication? 

Elder SJ:  I did and it was beautiful. Elder Holland gave an amazing talk, and I got to hear it twice because he said one part in English then it was translated to Spanish, then English then Spanish. It was great! 

cc:  I think Katelyn and Luke came home from their honeymoon today. I hope they had a good time. 

Elder SJ:  I hope they had a good time as well! Where did they go? 

cc:  We are loving BYU football this year. Tanner Mangum is the starting quarterback and he is a true freshman (the starting QB broke his foot in the first game). Tanner was a companion of Mason's in Chile. He is doing phenomenal things. It's fun. And I am sure we must be related. 

Elder SJ:  I'm glad you're all enjoying BYU football as always. 

cc:  Is your companion still doing well?  What do you do on your P-day?  Did you ever get the "no big deal" package I sent?

Elder SJ:  My comp is still great! We just write, buy our groceries, eat, and have our district meeting at 5:00 and then it's over... not much time to do anything really... but there is nothing to do here anyway so not like we are missing out. And I did and I forgot to tell you! Thank you soo much! Even though the box got ruined in delivery and there was chocolate everywhere most of the stuff survived. Thanks for all! 

Unlucky 13

SO as of yesterday, I started my 13th month in the mission, pretty scary right? I hope it's not as unlucky as I think! But we will see. 

But this past week went well! Just a lot of contacting and working with the members! We have a few good progressing investigators right now.  One is Astrid, who will have a famlily home evening with us at the stake president's home and that should be exciting! And yesterday someone introduced us to a friend who seems like a pretty good prospect! All is going well with Elder De Olarte.  He is a great elder and helps me a ton! 

I just want to say that I'm super happy for Katelyn for getting sealed this Saturday. I think that that is awesome, and the fact that families can be eternal is the best thing that this gospel can offer! I hope everything goes well with you all at home and I love you all so much! 

Sorry for the short letter, we don't have much time and it wasn't a very eventful week!

Love, 

Elder St John