September 1, 2014

No time to download pictures this week, next week.

There are three different towns in my área, and how much I walk depends on if we can get a taxi or not. But the roads, more than half of them, are exactly like we thought. Really glad I have my boots. But the Docs are also fantastic, and are my favorite pair of shoes. They are super comfy and my feet almost never hurt at the end of the day.

I haven’t been sick.

We eat at members’ homes for lunch probably about 60% or 70% of the time. Other times we don’t really have time for lunch or we buy a quick one. Only once or twice have we actually made our own lunches. As for all that rain stuff, in these two weeks it hasn’t rained that much. My comp says that’s a little strange and normally it rains a ton. The one time that we DID have a massive downpour, I was fine. The towns here won’t be on the map. Look for San Andreas Tuxtlas Sur. This is the closest city and where we go to buy everything, and basically where we are on Pdays.

Not so many exotic birds. There are a couple black and bright yellow looking ones that I think are finches, but that’s it. This place actually looks a lot like Tennessee, except it’s got mountains and palm trees. What makes this place beautiful are the mountains. I don’t think there are any ruins here. There’s a nice waterfall in the jungle that I’ll go to see sometime.

These people are children of God.

What generally happened this week:

About 35 people came Sunday. 

So, at first the week was great. I was supposed to have my first baptism this Sunday. That didn’t work out. Around Friday or Saturday, everything started to unravel. The guy who we were supposed to baptize is 22. I know that he has a testimony of the góspel. He has to not drink for a week in order to be baptized. A recent convert told him it was okay if he drank right up to the baptism. Later that night we found out that his friend had told him this. Before the interview I could tell that there was something wrong. We knew he wasn’t ready to be baptized. We have not been able to reach him since. The word of wisdom and the law of chastity are problemas for many people here. Often there is no priesthood at church but us who are able to officiate. It is hard for the young men here. 3 or 4 of the sisters are wonderful and have strong testimonies.

Elder Thompson