First Week in Mexico!

Hello from Mexico!!

I survived my first week! It is so different here in Mexico. All the buildings are made of cement and bricks, people push carts around playing songs that keep saying the word "pan" over and over, and I can´t understand half of what anyone says to me. The buses are like rollercoasters without restraints and the dogs run rampant (or they just sleep all over the place in the shade because its so hot). My new companion/trainer, Elder Rodriguez, is pretty cool. He is from Uruguay and he doesn¨t speak English. He has been out here for only about 6 months, but he seems to know what he is doing. The heat and humidity here is exhausting, I have never sweat so much in my entire life. The food has been pretty good, they have a habit of frying almost everything they cook in a bunch of fat though. My body is still getting used to it. I also can{t drink the tap water or I will get worms, but thats about all Ihave to avoid besides shady street vendors. Spanish wasn't too bad at first, I thought I was doing really well because I could understand most people and talk fairly easily. But the past couple days I don't know what happened, I've been really struggling with it and it feels like Ive been getting worse. I just need to keep working at it. It is tough when your companion doesn't speak English.

My first day in our area (tuesday last week) we were teaching a daughter (Karen) and her Father (Pedro). Elder Rodriguez and his old companion had taught them once before. We committed them to be baptized and they said YES! They are truly very prepared by the Lord and have been working hard to prepare themselves to be baptized. The only real problem is that Pedro isn't married to Susana (his "wife") and we didn't think it was a problem because they are fairly old, but she doesn't really want to get married. We haven't been teaching her because she is always working, but we got the chance to teach Pedro, Susana, and Karen together a couple days ago about the Law of Chastity, so hopefully she will change her mind.

This week has truly been the hardest week of my life and it seems as though the follwing weeks will be equally as difficult. My respect for other missionaries who have gone before me has grown so much. I have been learning to do my best and also to rely on and have faith in the Lord to be able to help me make my best enough. I am enjoying finally having a seemingly immpossible challenge to tackle and master.

I love you all very much. I miss you all very much. Thank you for all the support that you give me. Have a great week!

con amor,

Elder Johns