A Ginger Takes on Mexico: Snake

Hola familia y amigos!

So, snake. Snake because I am a snake. Because I have finally peeled all the way from my wicked bad burn and now am a new missionary! I think I might have scared some people off from the fact I looked like a lizard growing out of its skin, but all is well now! I am glad that is over. Oh, also that picture of the dead snake I sent a while ago is WICKED deadly and dangerous, we keep finding ones that people have killed all over. It had a head, but everyone chops off the tail because it has a stinger like a scorpion. Yeah, not good. I am glad they are dead when we find them!

This week -

Tuesday - We got to go to Xalapa! Hna D is a sister training leader, and it was a big conference for all the leaders of the mission, so lucky me being her comp, I got to go! It was like culture shock again going down, they have Walmart, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, Subway, Costco...everything. I did not even feel like I was in Mexico. I also realized how quickly I had become accustomed to the littleness that Papantala had. Papantala literally has nothing. I was talking to Elder Hansen (from Orem, on the BYU soccer team, kinda cool!) on the bus on the way back to Papantala, and he said my area basically has the most nothing out of the whole mission, if that makes sense. I cannot get over how different Mexico is in different areas! ALSO THERE ARE NO HILLS IN XALAPA! That was a shock also hahaha we are basically in the middle of the mountains in Papantala. Our visas were not ready yet either, so we are going to have to make another trip back to Xalapa at some point.

Wednesday - back to missionary work! We had a zone meeting, about all the announcements from the big meeting in Xalapa. I GOT A BUNCH OF LETTERS! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! I feel the love! Getting letters is my absolute favorite thing!! It was like Christmas! Momma, Sister Zeller, Nana Carol, Matthew Finnerty, thank you everyone!!! My day was amazing from that point on. Hot, but still good. We are working really hard with Cornelio and his 2 kids, Nancy and Javier. He works in the ranches though, so we never know when he is going to be there and we never know if he will be able to make it to church. But they have so many good questions, and get so exciting about the scriptures. THEY JUST NEED TO GO TO CHURCH!!!! I have such high hopes for them, but they need to do their part too!

Thursday - if some thing has been emphasized to me, it is that nothing worth having is easy. God works through people working hard, so that means I need to work wicked hard if I want lots of results! No slacking!

Everything has chile here, carmel apples, candy, doritoes, everything. I might be turning into a chile if you are what you eat. Had cucumber water today, that was interesting. I take back what I said about mole. There are 2 different types. Sweet mole is DELICIOUS! The other kind though is a different story.

Something I learned today is that we need to be more personal in our lessons, ask lots of questions, make it SO personalized. We had our DL come with us to a lesson with Cornelio, and we had Cornelio pray. AFter he finished, Cornelio was blinking rapidly. Tears?!?!?!!? The spirit was so strong! My heart hurts because I want him to go to church so bad. I know if we have more personalized lessons, the Spirit will flow and new doors will be opened.

Friday - Mexicans put ketchup on pizza.....i tried it. LOVED IT!!!! Here we add the letters ita onto words to make them nicer. For example, I was refering to an old person and said vieja, but apparently that is really rude. However, viejita is acceptable. I do not understand this language. New investigators today! Her name is Gelacia, her daughter is a member, BUT she is Catholic, like everyone else in Papantala it seems hahaha but by the end of the lesson, she really looked like she was thinking. I love when you can tell that people are having spiritual thoughts!

Saturday - Conference! We only got like 5ish talks from both sessions because it was so delayed and paused, but I was grateful to hear some uplifting words in English! The mangos here are SO GOOD. People keep giving them to us lately, sosososo good. Today was hard though, Javier the son of Cornelio, would not stop laughing when I was talking. My accent was cracking him up. It actually hurt a lot, I thought the language was going pretty good and then he was laughing his head off. I did not talk for the rest of the lesson...I know I cannot let stuff like that get to me, but it did today!

Sunday - CONFERENCE WORKING TODAY!!! So amazing. I felt like so many of the messages were aimed right at me. So grateful for inspired leaders of our church! One of the speakers reminded me of the guy in Dispicable Me, we could not stop laughing once we made the connection in our tiny room with 9 missionaries crowded around the computer. Someone tried to sell us cocaine on the way to the chapel. NO THANK YOU. None of our investigators came again :(. Blessings come after the trial of our faith, I know that. This is the trial of my faith!

Monday - we got to go the Tajin today! They are these ancient pyramids about 10 minutes from my area. Pretty cool! Valiente aka Brave is playing in the computer place as I write this email. Ironic!

I love you all, I am so grateful that I get to be here in Mexico! I am sorry if I cannot respond to all your emails, but I appreciate all of them! I print them off and read them for boosters throughout the week!

Love, Hermana Westergard