Air Conditioners

November 7, 2017
    Today, in a p-day when we have almost not time to teach, we almost made the same amount of numbers as we did all of last week put together!  We got a bunch of air conditioners today too.  I’m not sure why they gave us three because each companionship can only have one.  In addition to that, we can’t even set ours up until after the zone class tomorrow. We worked hard today and saw some success.  I also bought pancake mix today!!!  It was super cheap and I just made the best tasting pancakes ever.  It is life changing for me!

November 8, 2017
    Election day!  Well I didn’t actually hear who won the election in the USA today, but either way it is probably going to suck for our country.  My comp absolutely hates Hillary, so he is all for Trump, but I just think that they are both terrible.  Today was good though, we started working with a less active family in the branch.  They were referred from President Chavez and they are very bright.  I think that we can help them remember.  We also had a lesson with Jose that was awesome!  We seems incredibly sincere and loves the church.  He told us that he knows we were called of God to come and teach him.  It is really cool to start to see his faith growing.  He still had a ton to learn though, as we all do.  One thing that I am learning is that you really have to teach principles several times before people understand and remember. We also had a zone class today and learned how to use our air conditioners. Elder Long is setting ours up right now!
November 9, 2017
    This may have been the very first day out in the field that I did not enjoy.  It wasn’t a bad day, we taught and worked hard.  But it wasn’t a great day with respect to the way I felt.  I didn’t get to bed until midnight because of setting up the air conditioner. Worse than that, we were only allowed to let it run for two hours a day.  So, stupidly, we shut the door thinking it would hold the cold air in longer.  When we turned the ac off, the well insulated room got super hot and I woke up drenched in sweat.  The whole day I have been absolutely exhausted and it has been hard to feel the Spirit, love the people, and be motivated to work.  All the rules about getting enough sleep are given for a reason!  It didn't help that we started to fast for one of our investigators.  I don’t care about the food, but to go without water under these conditions is really hard.  As crappy as I feel for staying up late one night, I can’t understand how disobedient missionary stay out in the field.
November 10, 2017
    It was a day for less active members and recent converts.  We had planned a full day of stuff to do, but we just ended up spending all of our time with less active members today.  It is good to work to reactivate members.  One family is really struggling.  They were almost active again, but the dad of the family started drinking again.  Alcohol and drugs ruin so many people and families here. 
    We have been doing an awful job of speaking Spanish as a companionship lately.  We have to get better at that.  We had to run home tonight in our missionary clothes which I hate.  I think that we are getting better at teaching as a companionship.  It is nice to feel like I have made progress in something.
November 11, 2017
    Today was lots of walking and not a lot of teaching.  It is super hard to set up cites with people so you kinda of just have to pass by and hope they are home sometimes.  A lot of times, plans don’t work out at all. the mission isn’t perfect in any way, and it won’t be so long as there are kids like me out here!  Today we had a solid day planned (5 investigator lessons) and also back up plans (4 investigators and 1 less active).   We thought it would be a solid day, but then only 2 lessons worked out because our member canceled on us.  Then we spent the rest of the time walking between appointments only to find them gone or too busy to talk to us.  At least it was a cooler day today because of the rain yesterday. 
November 12, 2017
    Lots of rain today.  I don’t have an umbrella anymore because mine got stolen my another missionary in the CCM. I got super soaked.  Good day though.  It is the Saturday before changes so we spent a lot of our time cleaning the house. I spent all of those hours wither in the bathroom or the kitchen cleaning. Our kitchen isn’t that dirty, but it is hard to clean.  After that, I walked in the rain./  It really wasn’t too bad at all, a lot colder than usual, but ZI don’t think that my shoes are made to handle walking all day in the water.  

    We taught an English class at the chapel today.  Our lesson was on how to pray in English.  You never actually understand how hard it is to speak English until you try to teach someone with no knowledge of English.  President Clayton has a rule that native speakers have to learn English, so every district class we have a 30-60 minute class on English.  The class ended late and we had to take a taxi home.  We did get to talk to the taxi driver about the church and he ended up giving us a discounted ride.  He ended up being our only contact today…which was sad.  No one is out in the streets when it is raining which makes it impossible to contact.
November 13, 2017
    More rain today!  I remembered that I have a giant rain jacket so i just wore that today and it was perfect.  Today, there was a special church broadcast only for Mexico which was pretty cool.  They talked a ton about families and enduring to the end.  A couple of general authorities spoke Spanish although their accents were terrible.  Still, I am they spoke better than I do.  None of our investigators were there today because of the rain.  It was a weird day overall.  We only had enough time to teach two lessons for some reason.  And one of the less actress we taught, straight up yelled at us for not speaking enough Spanish with each other.  So we need to get better at using our time wisely and speaking more Spanish.