7/29/13

BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO!!!

Hola hola hola everybody!!

Well it has been an extremely crazy week! I'll try to fill you in on as much as I possibly can.  My companion is Elder Leishman. He is from Paradise, UT, so yes he's white ha.  But he has been out eight months so he speaks really good spanish and is an awesome trainer.  Our area is Mirador B.  It's a new area that hasn't had any missionary work done in it in a while.  So the work has been pretty tough.  We split a pretty good sized ward with our district leaders, and somehow they ended up with 90% of the active members in their area. We started out this week just looking for members in our area so that we could get to know them.  It was tough because we didn't even have a member list until friday night ha.  We have also been spending a lot of time trying to find the less actives in our area, because there is really a lot.  The only problem is that more than half of the addresses don't even exist.  So we have been looking for houses that aren't even on the map most of the time.  

However most of time we have spent contacting.  Because we got to the area and we have a brand new area book, with 0 old investigators.  I really like the contacting, but I understand about 10% of what is said ha.  So after everyone I have Elder Leishman give me a quick recap of what went well, because to me they all look good as long as the person accepts a card or a book of mormon, but usually the conversations don't go as well as I think.  I like talking to people a little bit more than Elder Leishman does though, so I will usually greet the person and introduce ourselves, but then Elder Leishman does most of the talking.  It has been pretty tough to find investigators though.  Not a lot of people have been open to our message.  We thought that we had one good one, we gave him the lesson of the restoration outside his store, and left him a book of mormon to read, but we went back the next two days and he hadn't done anything that we asked him too.  He said that he was too busy with work and taking his kids to the park ha. Oh well we will keep trying with him.  

We have spent quite a bit of time teaching with the district leaders too.  They are both from mexico and are really funny to be around.  they know the are a little bit better than we do, so they have been showing us where some of the member live, and helping us contact.  My first day here they were showing us around and we ended up crossing basically 1-15 on foot haha. I'm not going to lie, I was scared for my life.  But I guess thats just how the Mexicans do it.  My companion and I have taken the bridge that goes over the freeway ever since that experience haha.  Another cool thing, there is a story about a man from monterrey in Preach My Gospel.  and he is in our area! we got to have dinner with him on sunday and it was really cool!

So yesterday after church we were really frustrated, because we have had very little success with our numbers and investigators.  We decided to say a prayer right in the middle of the street that we would be able to find someone to teach.  And the answer came only after 4or5 more rejections haha.  My companion said he really just wanted a nice family to teach.  So we went on contacting and I greeted this guy that stopped to talk to us.  We had been rejected all day so Elder Leishman just asked him, why did you stop? He said that he loved hearing the word of God.  So we were going to set up an appoitment with him for later because it was late, but instead we just followed him to his house.  He has a wife and twin boys, and his name is Pedro Sanchez (like napoleon dynamite ha) We taught him the plan of salvation and he loved everything he said.  We are really hoping that he does his reading that we left him.  because we both felt the spirit so strong during the lesson.  It was awesome to have our prayer answered like that!

Well this is by far the longest letter I have written, but there is still a ton I have left out.  Oh the city is crazy.  I have seen 2013 audis, but also grandpas riding donkeys with their grandsons in a river bed ha.  On one side of the freeway is a costco and walmart and a mall, and then the other side is nothing but cinder blocks.  It has been over 100 ever day and is super humid.  Our apartment is pretty nice, except its on the top floor so it is like 90 degrees every night.

Well I miss all you guys! I hope you are all great 

Elder Jacobsen

I am trying to send some pictures, but the computer is being difficult.  I will send them in another email.

Oh and we taught a lady that looked exactly like Bathilda Bagshot hahahaha. She was like 900 years old.  I thought you might like that :)

They have King Jullians for sale here!!!