Nov. 4, 2009

So anyway, People asked a lot of diet questions. I eat a lot of Mexican food which is delicious and is nothing like taco bell. Except Posole and Menudo are disgusting!!! I was at a members house a couple sundays back and they gave me a huge bowl of posole which is a nasty soup with lots of homany and grease in it. I could not finish it and i didn't want to offend but my stomach couldn't handle it and I was sweating because I was so nervous about seeming rude but I was about to chunder.

However, usually at my apartment I eat lots of authentic tamales that the members give us, and then my companion and I eat beans and tortillas for every meal. Everyone said that all i would eat here is beans and rice. The funny thing is, that is kinda true for the beans part but only because my companion and I choose to eat beans for every single meal. Still haven't had rice. I almost cannot stand a meal with out tortillas now, but these aren't Utah white boy tortillas.

I love the hispanic culture. It is so much better than conservative white culture. We had a big party at the park last saturday afternoon and everybody from the ward comes and they invite all their friends, it is a way bigger turn out then we ever had in Utah, and everyone brings tons of food and we play futbol all day. I hated soccer before my mission, now it is my favorite sport for sure. It is so cool because everybody plays. We had forty year old women and men playing futbol with missionaries, children and really good players alike. It was so cool. It's like everybody joins in and even the kids are amazing. I loved it. it makes me sad that I will ever be return to boring utah wards at some point in my life.

So I don't know if I talked about Reuben before. He was a chicano, hispanic but can't speak spanish. We found him a few weeks ago and he was so willing to accept everything we said and be baptized. However, he had a ton of problems with drugs and stuff but he was willing to do anything to get off of them. We taught him a few times but then we turned him over to the english elders because that is what we have to do.

Anyway, they couldn't get a hold of him for a while cuz he went out of town but we saw him last thursday and so we asked if we could stop by six PM saturday and see how he was doing. We stopped by that night but he wasn't there.

So we got a call from the english elders on monday and they said they stopped by and his dad told him that he died of a drug overdose. I was so sad because he was so ready to accept the gospel

Anyway we taught a plan of Salvation lesson to a part member family for family home evening on monday and at the end I felt like I should share this experience. I could hardly express myself in spanish because i was so emotional, and I was bawling my eyes out but the spirit ws really strong and I testified of how he will have the opportunity in the spirit world to accept the message. It was really cool because after I shared this it just ended up being a huge testimony meeting and their daughter, who is not a member and just had a child out of wedlock, shared her testimony and said she wants to be baptized and so did her husband and they had non member relatives over who we got return appointments with and half the people were in tears as we listened to beautiful testimonies. It was a total miracle and I know that it will lead to some baptisms.

I have to go. Miguel finally came to church and is on the path to baptism. We have another couple: Marco and Annabella that are close too.

Bye