The One About Sleeping

I would say that usually, I'm a pretty normal sleeper. I move a bit but usually, I sleep like a normal human being. That being said, my mission has changed me. I am not exaggerating to you guys when I say, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT since I've been here I have slept talked. I have been having very lucid dreams where I can't tell what is reality and what is a dream. Every night something happens like, I will think that my comp asks me to say a prayer so I sit up in my bed and start praying. I either open my eyes during the prayer or afterwards and I realize that my comp is laying down in her bed asleep and it's 2:00 am. I will sometimes get out of my bed and stand up and start teaching a lesson or as I'm walking to get my scriptures I'm like, "wait what am I doing?" then I head back to bed. It seriously happens every night. My companion probably thinks that I'm crazy but all is well!

This week was so good though! We had another baptism! We baptized a lady named Mayra. Her son came down from Arizona this week to baptize her and it was so tender! Our zone has a ward here in Tehuacán but we also have a little branch out in an area called Tepexi de Rodríguez. Tepexi is made up of a bunch of little farm towns and it's 2 hours from where I am at so we only really go out there once a transfer. And so it was super hard to plan her baptism because we couldn't easily communicate with people out there. There also isn't a font out there and, since it has been raining a lot lately, the river was too dangerous to do it there. So, we ended up driving an extra hour and went to a different little town (that technically is in a different mission - the Puebla North Mission) and baptized her there. As a result, there were a lot of logistics and stuff that we needed to do this week, but she got baptized and it was so cute and fun! God is always here helping us figure out how to make things work! Love you guys!

The One With Fiestas

Feliz 16 de Septiembre!! This week was completely full of parties! 16 of September is Mexico’s Independence Day – most people think it's Cinco de Mayo but it's actually not lol. And I’ll tell you what, they go hard here for Independence Day. Everything is shut down and people take the day to rest and to party. There was a big fair downtown that we went to with our zone! The day before, on the 15th, there were parties all night too. We also went across the street to our neighbor's house for a little fiesta and ate dinner with them!

Independence Day Fun

The next day on the 17th was my first zone conference! We drove all of our zone to Puebla and met up with another zone too. The car ride there was so pretty and so fun talking with everyone. This Sunday we had our first “in person” sacrament meeting! It was so much fun to see everyone from the ward in person. Today is Elder Trejo’s birthday (he’s an elder in my district) so we went to a little ranch and at breakfast and cake and played “headbands”. It has been a lot of work this week but a lot of partying too! I loved it!! Love you all! xoxo

Zone Conference Pics

The One With My First Baptism

I'm not going to lie to you guys, this week was CRAZY!! It all started on Tuesday. Tuesday was my "monthly birthday" and so we went out to get churros for a treat to celebrate. Here we are just sitting and eating and everything starts to shake. There was an EARTHQUAKE! We all evacuated the building and everything was completely fine but it was wild! We were at the end of the earthquake so it didn't affect us as much but some people in other areas had telephone poles and stuff fall over in their streets! (We found out later that the earthquake was actually about 300 miles away, outside of Acapulco)

Later in the week we had exchanges – which is just when you switch missionary companions for the day – so Hermanas Castillo and Ramirez came over. The tricky part is that their area is 2 hours away and so all four of us ended up just staying in our area. They are both so cute and fun! On Saturday morning for our exercise, they taught us how to salsa! We had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

On Sunday, Jorge got baptized! He is the cutest guy I've ever met! I'm so happy for him! It was one of the most stressful days ever because nearly everything that could've gone wrong did....but in the end, everything worked out perfectly! This week has been a lot of crazy but it has also been one of the funnest weeks in the mission! There is always room for people to join our church and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be out here and see the light that it can bring into a world that has so much darkness. I love you all so much!