Week 22 (Anáhuac, Mexico)

Monday before the meeting we played soccer at the church. And also that night we had a little extra time and we couldn’t enter our apartment yet so we played soccer with some people in that pavilion thing I sent you a picture of. We played a bit and got their addresses…it is too bad they don’t live in our area though. They were actually really good.

 (This is a picture of the park across the street from our apartment. In that building is a basketball and soccer field. We go there to work out. and it was really foggy that morning.)

At our meeting they told us that we can’t use our electric heaters anymore because it is wasting too much money. There was a house of elders that spent 2000 pesos on electricity the previous month.  They said that we had to use the gas ones now, but we didn’t have one yet and had to wait a few days until they could bring some out to Anahuac. It got really cold. The houses here are just like freezers with that brick. In the morning it was warmer outside our house than inside and we could see our breath inside. Luckily we had a ton of blankets and jackets and some thermals to keep warm.

On Tuesday we went to Cuauhtémoc because Elder Hansen had to sign some papers for immigration. Elder Garcais and Elder McGavin were also there waiting too and we were able to talk and catch up with them. Elder Garcais was the one from Utah that was in my district when I first got here in Mexico. And Elder McGavin is the one who used to live next door in Anahuac. It was cool to talk with them and tell them all that has been going on here.

They are companions in the Sierra where it is really cold too. There aren’t a lot of members out there or the members don’t like to feed the missionaries or something so they have to buy their own food every day. They took us to this Egyptian burrito place here in Cuauhtémoc where I bought this raja quesadilla that was really good. It was just beans and cheese and some green spicy pepper thing. There was also this thing called a falafel, I think they have them in the US too but I don’t know if they are the same. It is like an eggplant breaded with garlic or something in a burrito, I also tried some of that and it was pretty good. 

 (This is a picture of the parking lot and courts of the church in Cuauhtemoc. it was raining really hard.)

Later that day we got invited to the home of a lady that we had given a blessing to the previous Sunday. She was really sick, and after the blessing she felt a lot better and her husband noticed how she was able to do a lot more after having received the blessing so they invited us back to hear a bit of our message. They are good friends with one of the members and they tell the members when it is ok, or when she is feeling up for us to come visit. We have only been able to go one other time but we have plans to try and go back soon.

On Wednesday not much to write about just lots of rain and wind.

On Thursday we had a zone meeting. During the meeting the zone leaders taught us about what they learned from the meeting that they had with the president earlier that week. We learned about mountains and how our lives are full of trials or tasks to accomplish and how these are like mountains.

We were also taught about a horse. The horse was really famous it was named secretariat. It was a racehorse that was really successful. And they related our lives as missionaries and as members of the church to this horse. It was actually pretty cool, they talked about how this horse was from a lineage of champions and that is like us because we are children of God. And how this horse had to work really hard to break records and to achieve goals and how that is like us on the mission and like us going into the New Year with goals and records to break.   They also talked about the second coming. In Revelations chapter five it talks about seven seals. They talked about how the second coming is at hand and they tied it into our obedience as missionaries and how we need to be worthy and the Lord can’t work with dirty workers.

Afterwards they got permission from president to go out to eat. They took us to a pizza restaurant. Every companionship got a pizza I ordered my half with barbecue chicken.

On Friday some random person saw us and started talking to us in English. She was really excited to see missionaries because her daughter was a convert and she married a missionary. She called her daughter to tell her about us and took a picture of us sent it to her daughter who lives in Sugarhouse Utah. She then bought us an ice cream cone. And we talked about the church and got to know them a bit. They were from Texas just visiting family there in Anahuac.

That is way cool that you got to go the farewell of Jon Thomas. That is way cool that he decided to serve and that he is heading out. It is pretty cool to see how the gospel changes people.

The weather has done the opposite hear in Mexico. It was colder this week, lots of rain and fog. I got a couple of cool pictures of the fog. 

 (This is the church in Anahuac, it looked a lot cooler than it shows in the picture, the picture didn't catch the fog very well.)

The work was still a bit slow this week. No one has been opening their doors. They don’t even look out to see who is at the door the just don’t answer it is weird. But there have been more people in the streets though, more people to contact and that is good.

We just kind of stopped visiting Manuel and Luz. We still eat with them every week on Wednesday but nothing more than that. They are just very stubborn I guess you could say. They always say that they respect what we are doing but they don’t want any of it.

The new elder, Elder Perez is really cool. He actually played soccer before when he was in Ecuador. He is pretty good too. Last week before our meeting at the church we played a little 2-v-2 tournament with some missionaries which was pretty fun. All of the missionaries that just got transferred in said that I was the first gringo that was good at soccer ha-ha. I actually can’t tell a difference between his Spanish and the Mexican Spanish it sounds the same to me. I can actually understand him pretty easily which has been nice. The last missionary was from like central or southern Mexico and I had a hard time understanding his Spanish.

Love Elder Blanchard