5 Months come and gone

HOLAAAAA!

SO. Yesterday I celebrated 5 months in the mission. WHERE HAS TIME GONE. I felt like I was in the MTC yesterday! My life is flashing before my eyes!

Last pday we learned our lesson with the garbage. For some reason, we just never took the garbage out to the curb. The road where we live is being worked on, so it is like a war zone every time we leave and we try to carry as little as possible so we can keep our balance and not fall into the pits of destruction I mean construction. So we had a little growing pile of bags of garbage. This would be fine IF the national bug of Mexico was not the annoying fruit fly. We started to pick up the bags to take them out and there was an EXPLOSION of HUNDREDS of GROSS fruit flies. I hate them!!!!!! We also saw on the bags, after we launched them into the pile or garbage where people put their trash, little eggs of SOMEthing. GROSS GROSS GROSS. We both gagged and almost barfed. NEVER AGAIN will we collect the trash bags like that.

Other than the gross trash experience, this week felt like a re-energized and rejuvenating week! I kind of felt like I was slipping into a mission routine, doing the same things every day, going the same places...I felt like I had lost a spark of some sort. I had been praying to feel this spark, this energy and excitement again, and this week it came back! I was so excited! This week really was SO fantastic, I know our prayers are answered! No more slump! I am still wicked tired all the time, but somehow I keep on going! It reminds me a little bit of seminary. I do not know how I made it through, but I did it!

So our zone fasted last Sunday to be able to find more people. We had a lot of baptisms this transfer, but no one really had any plans for the next one. The power of fasting is real! We got 7 new investigators this week!!

Eduardo: THIS IS CLAUDIA'S BOYFRIEND. So we had a lesson with him this week....we really needed to talk to him about the whole marriage thing. We took the Elders from our ward with us too and........WE HAD AN AMAZING LESSON!!!! The Spirit was basically sitting next to him, and he agreed to get married this coming Friday! Claudia is going to be baptized that day, and he is going to be baptized Sunday! AAAHHHHHH!!!!!! We were so worried, so stressed, praying so much for this. AND HE IS TOTALLY DOWN WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!! SOSOSOSO HAPPY!!!!!

Karla and family: Karla is 14, and she has 2 sisters and 1 brother. She was SO excited, SO animated, we were teaching her almost every day, I helped her with her English and math homework, she was teaching her family how to pray and was reading everything we assigned her from the Book of Mormon!!!! BUT, on Sunday when we went to walk to church with her, her aunt was there. I am guessing her aunt has some sort of power over the family, because she told us - very rudely - that Karla was Catholic and so was her family, and that she would not be going to church with us, and that we could leave. GAH. HORRIBLE WOMAN. We left, but we are going to try to talk to Karla a little bit more, we did not even really get to say goodbye or anything. If her aunt will not let her go to church now, at least Karla knows about it, and when she is older she can take a stance against her aunt. KARLA IS AMAZING THOUGH

Samuel: he is very blunt and matter-of-factish. Also semi OCDish, he is an interesting character. We found him by looking for his cousin who was never there, and then one day he answered the door. He told us that he believes we were placed in his path for a reason. We believe so too!!! We meet with him almost every day too, but every Sunday he texts us and tells us he cannot go for some reason or another.....hmmmmm....kind of fishy. He has a lot of input in the lessons and everything but cannot seem to make it to church. We will see where this goes

Josue: friend of Angel, an investigator who is not really progressing. He is super philosophical, is studying psychology and has so much to say about everything. More like questioning the universe, but is very interested still! He was drinking a cup of wine the whole first lesson and has a huge collection of wine and beer bottles on top of us TV. We left a Word of Wisdom pamphlet for him to read and for us to talk about next time hahahaah.

We got to do service this week for an old hermana (sister) in our ward. I hate weeding almost more than anything, but it was not that bad this time. I do not know why, but it was actually really satisfying to yank the weeks out. HAHA I win!!!!

I am in the process of creating my mission recipe book. It is going great so far, and I add new things when people are willing to give up there family cherished recipes. 

Speaking of cooking, we helped an investigator make a tres leches cake for her daughters birthday. We were actually helping her mom. We made the 3 leches part, and were working on cutting and preparing the cake to dump the heavenly goodness in the cake to soak. The grandma had been mixing the 3 leches part and told us to try it. We did, and it was so good!!!!!!! BUT THEN she says there was a secret ingredient she added, and she pulls out a bottle of brandy. WHAT! She said she just added a little for the taste.....I never thought I would try alcohol, let alone the first time being on my mission. We did not sample any more after that hahahaha.

The work is moving forward in Mexico!

Love, Hermana Westergard

old folletos!

goat looking cable tower

 the inviting signs we see