Que Paso Familia

Here are some pics from the Visitors Center, mainly the kids room because that is all

 I really got pics from. The guy is Ivan. 

They are lighting up the Temple and all the trees like they do in SLC 

so I will have to go one of these nights and take pics. 

Hello Hello!

It has been another crazy fast week! Today has been especially crazy with all the things to get done. We had another practice for our Christmas zone activity, which is this Friday, in Centenario this morning. After we played futbol for a while which was fun, but now I have a headache from being in the sun for so long running without my glasses. My weekly injury was today during futbol. It is all just on cement, because that is all Mexico City is, so I tripped over a little curb thing trying to get the ball and scraped up my foot pretty good and bloody. haha But its all good. We stayed at the church playing for a lot longer that expected so the rest of the day has been a rush. After we went to the Temple to turn in a gas reimbursement, and I got my Christmas Package!! Yes it came. Also Nichole's letter, and the dear elders from Mama. I paid 40 pesos for the taxi to our front door so I wouldn't get my package robbed from me on the streets or in a bus. haha. After we hurried and took our laundry to the lavanderia and ate at the boiling pig pot again because our fav taco spots are only open at night. Bought some groceries, all healthy stuff because I'm pretty sure I'm getting fat, and now I am here in this lovely little Internet cafe. But yes I got the package, and it was in a lot better shape than the first one. I don't know if I should wait until Christmas to open it? That's gonna be hard. haha.

So this will be the last week with Elder Hernandez, but we will find out for sure all the details this weekend. Now that I am nearing the end of my training, I am leading all the the lessons, visits, etc. Which is good for me and my Spanish which is still slowly and surely coming.

We got to watch the Christmas devotional yesterday, which I loved. It still is so weird for it to be Christmas time at home, I still picture Utah like it was when I left in September. There are some people who decorate for Christmas here, some of the nicer houses have Christmas lights, and the majority have a Christmas tree. I was able to understand most of the Christmas devotional because yes it was in Spanish. They broadcasted it at our stake center in Centenario. But it did make me realize that these 2 Christmas´ in the mission will be good for really focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

Um we did service for an hermana in the ward this last week, and helped her paint part of her house. The standards of cleanliness here are just terrible, haha. Her house is pretty bad, but there are lots of holes in the cement walls and things, so she just hand mixed some cement in one of her kitchen bowls, shoved it in some of the holes in the wall and painted over it with some lovely pastel pink paint which was just about as good as colored water. haha. It was a mess, but oh well.

We had a training conference this last week with an Elder from the 70, but I forgot his name. On Thursday we had a training for 4 hours. It was really good. It was mainly on how important it is to make sure our investigators and members understand the doctrine of the atonement, and a lot about the less actives. He said 70 percent of the members here in Mexico are less or inactive. A lot higher than that here in our ward. haha. We have a list of all the baptisms here in  our ward from 2012 and I didn't know a single one because all 73 of them are inactive. haha. But the conference was really good, I had to lead all of us (3 zones) in the reciting the missionary purpose in Spanish and in English. The best part was the big chocolate muffins during the intermission, ah so good. Another big message I got from the training was, I have 2 years to live it, and a lifetime to remember it.

We had another meeting with all the missionaries and their ward council members in our zone with our president and the Elder of the 70 about hastening the work. Lots of emphasis on this. Someone asked me to play the prelude music and I was like claro que si, but then when the conference started the conductor of the meeting was like and this Elder is going to play our hymns for us, and i about pooped my pants! I cant play them all! haha. I had never played the opening hymn before, but I actually made it through, wasn't the prettiest but not terrible. ha. Luckily the closing hymn was Angels we have Heard on High, which is the song for our activity so I knew that one. haha.

Church this week was really great, we had a really great turn out. 54. It was the Primary program and it was too funny. There was maybe 10 or 15 primary kids who definitely didn't know the songs, but it was still pretty great. I taught all of our principles of the Gospel class, I struggled with the Spanish a little because it was on the life of Christ and so it was all past tense stuff which is still a little tricky for me to get down.

All of the teaching is going really great, like I said I am leading all of the lessons. HOPEFULLY we will have a couple baptisms these next few weeks. One guy is named Rodolfo, who's family is all members, and he just lived a crappy life of drinking and partying with his friends and has a sincere desire to change. Anther is a 12 year old named Pamela, the daughter of Ivan, but the problem with her is that her Gma is muy catholic and said she is not going to pay for her giant 15 year birthday party if she is baptized. As soon as Alejandro and Itzel can get married, which they should within the next little bit, they can get baptized as well.

To answer your question Dad, as far as finances go here, it is pretty tight. We have our credit card and get 1800 pesos every month from an ATM. I try to do good rationing it out throughout the month, but it is hard, because it is not a lot to say the least.

So you guys will have to let me know what kind of other details you want for future letters, because I don't know what I'm missing. haha.

Love you all and have a great week in freezing Utah!

Elder Elgan