First week in Manzanillo!

Manzanillo is known for its excellent Marlan fishing.

October 6, 2016
    Okay, the humidity might kill me.  You can only get cooled off in buildings with air conditioning, of which there are very few that we visit. I sweat just sitting in front of my fan duty personal study time.  When I go outside, my face is literally dripping with seat after about 5 minutes of walking.  I think that I am averaging about 3 liters of water a day.  I am getting weird rashes already.  They are clusters of red dots all over my body.  Probably Zika virus. I think that the humidity might kill me, but the people are awesome.  They love the missionaries and they take amazing care of us here. Our area is super flat, but we are surrounded by the greenest mountains and hills.  It doesn’t rain very often here, but the humidity keeps the countryside green and lush. I am praying to sweat less because it is so uncomfortable being soaking wet all the time. 

Our study area

My Trainer, Elder Long

   We taught 4 lessons today and I was just dripping with sweat every time they spend the door.  We contacted a bunch and a few people seemed interested. We also stopped by the chapel which was a very nice building with air conditioning, so yeah that is my new favorite place.  Sundays will be the best part of the week.  My companion says that the chapel will feel cold after I become acclimated to the heat and humidity.
    It is so hard to understand people and to teach them what I want to teach.  The language barrier is pretty huge for me, but I am not surprised, so I am not frustrated by it.  People are very polite and say, “Oh you speak Spanish so well,” but it is not true at all. The work seems to be great here.  Mission rules state that an investigator has to attend church 5 times before baptism, but usually it is a lot longer than that.  We also are not allowed to teach a lesson from Preach My Gospel unless there is a member presents There is a member who will be going out with us tomorrow all day long, and he has a car, so that is a major blessing.
    I washed my very first load of clothes by hand today.  That was pretty interesting.  I use the bucket method where the rinse water looks as dirty as the wash water. 

My laundry room

October 7, 2016
    Well today was awesome even though most of our citas fell through. Our comida (daily meal) was amazing.  It was at this old couple’s house and who in a very nice home.  Their home was actually outside of our teaching area.  Nearly every home in that neighborhood had a swimming pool.  On our way there we took a bus which went around all the nice beaches in the city. The countryside is really very pretty.  There were tons of iguanas walking around like stray dogs.  I have never seen anything like it.  There are so many different kinds and colors of iguanas and they are huge!  The food was so good that we asked the member if they could make the food for our zone conference.  

    We were with Hermano Allen today for our lessons, 4 of which were planned with 3 back up lessons.  Three of the planned lessons fell through and the main investigator wasn’t there for the 4th lesson.  We taught his parents who are less active members so that worked out I guess. The three backup lessons turned out okay from what I could tell.  It felt like a packed day.  Thankfully it was a lot less sweaty with Hermano Allen’s car.  I am super grateful for him today.

     Tomorrow is Zone Conference, my first ever in the field.
October 8, 2016
    My first Zone Conference.  It was really good, I think?  President and Sister Clayton spoke about the importance of The Book of Mormon and a little about worthiness.  Honestly, not sure I understood a lot of what was said, but it was in a cool building ALL day, so it was a great day for me. 

     Another great thing happened to me today.  I found out that our DVD player can read my scratched Josh Wright CD!  So now I can listen to the piano piece that I want to learn to play…the one that Mom bugged me to learn before my mission, but didn’t. It also has the Chopin Ocean etude and Paganini variation that brings back awful musicfest and tendonitis memories.  It actually makes me want to re-learn that piece properly.  I do miss playing the piano far more than I thought that I would. But, esta bien…I am doing the Lord’s work now which is much better.  Though, I think that I have come to realize that my future dream is to study music if I could ever be good enough.  I need to put all of my dreams on hold for now.  I also need to stop eating so much.  I think that I am gaining weight.  They just keep feeding us so much food, it’s ridiculous.  Because I naturally eat fast, they think that I need and want more food. I have no way to tell them politely that I don’t want more food, so I just have to eat it.  Plus, I can’t do anything during dinner but eat and listen to my companion talk.
October 9, 2016
    Well today was horrible and great at the same time.  I woke up with the biggest….I don’t know….bowel pain?! Intestinal pain? Anyway, so so much pain accompanied with diarrhea.  Bad Diarrhea.  Both me and my companion were hit with it starting at 4 am.  We took turns rushing to the bathroom all day.  It was awful. His resolved toward midday, but mine lasted until about 3 PM. The worst.  It was church today so at least we were close to a bathroom all day long.  

     Church was, well great because it wasn’t hot. We have to wear suits on Sunday, which is so hard with it being so hot outside. Outside temps were in the 90’s with 80% humidity. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand anything in the meetings. After church we went teaching with a member who has a ton of personal problems, but who also has a ton of faith.  We taught a man who really wants to be baptized and his friend who is also pretty interested.  We set a baptismal date with him. That particular lesson was really good for me because I was able to speak Spanish more than I have ever been able to before. It was a great experience for me.  We also taught another man who wants to be baptized but can’t be because he is not legally married to his wife.  That happens a lot here.  He wants to marry her, but he has to be legally divorced from his ex wife first and that will take a while.  We taught another lesson with a kid who is 9 and is waiting for his Dad to receive the priesthood so that he can baptize him. The people here have a great spirit and they are really receptive to the gospel.