February 20

 

Elder Austin in Mexico!

Oooh the trip sounds like it's a blast :) sounds like a pretty small
group though this year, that's too bad... more fun with more people,
but yeah i can understand being busy... lol racing down the hill, yeah
there isn't snow where i am... i can see the volcanoes though, they
have some good snow, well, not utah snow, but give them a break, it's
mexico and there's snow. lol :) anyway, all the trip sounds so
awesome, lol of course i wish i was there but it's all good being here
instead, i keep pretty busy and don't have too much time to miss
everything at home. i barely even have time to write in my journal
every night, i usually get some in during breakfast though. right
before we start all the ridiculous studying lol we study about four
hours a day right now, starting at 8 we study personally for an hour
and then share what we learned together. then spend two hours
practicing lessons on each other and working on the fundamentals. then
an hour of language study and we're ready to go. we eat everyday with
a different family in the ward and it's always hard to know what
everybody is talking about. it's pretty tough not to get down on
myself when i'm not understanding everything, but then i remember i've
only been here for a week and really that isn't much time. all in all,
it's going pretty well. it's tough, but i know i can do it and get
through just fine. :)

Lol so temperature and weather here, lol well once i leave the house i
pretty much start sweating. lol it's like summer here no joke, and
it's only february, i still have yet to experience a real summer
mexico. what am i enjoying the most, well, definitely not the
language... probably the environment, and living in a different type
of world really. there is so much here that is completely different
than utah anywhere, you can probably tell some of that from the photos
but everything is different here. the houses are small, the streets
are dirty and there's a pretty interesting odor about the whole place,
but it's pretty good all around. :)

So, all the tracting and door knocking here is a bit difficult, a lot
of doors are in fenced in yards, without a doorbell at the gate, so
that makes it tough, and most houses are in lots, and the lots have
locked gates so we need somebody to come open the door to get in. and
we're really only supposed to go into those when we have an
appointment. which makes things difficult if the appointment forgets
we're coming.... which has happened. generally people are open to talk
for a little bit, but it's hard to find people who are really open to
a new gospel. everybody is either just interested in being good
catholics or in not doing anything really. we have a few investigators
that just aren't interested, but they keep letting us come back. we're
probably going to be dropping a few here soon, got some new ones a few
days ago and going to keep rotating through. lol always looking for
the chosen ones here. :) there are plenty of people most the time, but
some times in the day is just a pain because people are eating or
everybody's getting their kids. kinda makes things difficult to track.
It's hard to tell you all about it lol cause in reality we do a lot of
walking around, talking to random people or whatnot. our intro is
generally a did you know question, followed by this is our message,
when can we come by to share more of this message with you and your
family?
a lot of the time, it's a no thanks i'm catholic and we go into
knowing more about jesus christ is always good, sometimes it works,
sometimes not. lol but so these things are, sometimes we just walk
back and forth across our area checking on people we've talked to and
weren't home when we came back. checking on contacts is actually a big
part of what we do because they have already shown a little open ness
to the message so we just want to get in and share more.

it's hard to think of what to explain, there's quite a bit we've done,
but it's all pretty similar, and of course i only understand so much.
lol we talk like twenty five lessons last week, which is good, but we
only have a few progressing investigators with baptismal dates, it's
hard to get in that date in the first couple of lessons. we're going
to work a bit more on that this next week, it's tough, but i'll be
doing a bit more during lessons, we worked on some vocab and all that
fun stuff, i've gotten some new lessons on how to introduce certain
aspects and different ways to teach. it's pretty intimidating only
being here for one week and having to go through and learn so much.
but the people here are pretty nice and they listen when i talk. lol i
talk slow and pretty basic, it's a big difference between here and the
MTC, but it'll come. me and Elder Templin had an english talk last
night, lol got some good advice and he's knows a bit better how to
help me out and we'll tackle this week a bit better than the last. he
said every week gets better, so i'm going to go into this believing
him, take some leaps of faith and try out some new things. :)

all this is pretty exciting, wierd to think i've still got plenty of
time to go... I'm going to use it well :) lol we talked about it last
night though, found it pretty crazy we actually sleep for about a
third of our mission, we study for a third of the time we are awake
and we walk about the rest of the time. lol we walk a ton..... lol we
had to almost run from one appointment to the next yesterday, goodness
lol my shins were going to explode. they still hurt, but they should
be pretty rock hard by the time i get back. :) lol well, all around
i'm a bit more in shape than i have been for a while. lol not sure on
my current weight, but i don't think we have a scale here, so, yeah,
lol. don't know were i'm at, but it feels good wherever i am lol.


email is the best way to get info to me, fastest, dear elders take
about two weeks at least

and, i'll only go to the temple once out here in mexico, we only go
during christmas time, so i missed the last one while i was in the
MTC, but i went often there. :) i'll leave right before the one in
2014 too. bleh lol oh well


Anyways, i'll send this off now, go ahead and ask whatever questions
you want to know and i'll be able to answer questions better than just
blabbing on. lol it's hard to blab with pressure and a time limit. lol


Love you all tons and tons, miss you so much
email me and tell me what's up :)
Elder Andrew Austin