April 1, 2013

Hola familia!

Fue muy divertido para leer todos sus correos. Ahh my head is going crazy right now for several reasons. I had to read your emails a lot slower than normal because as my spanish is getting better and better my english is slowly getting worse and worse and I can't read quite as fast anymore. Half of my thoughts are in english and the other half are in spanish and its just a tad confusing when I can't find a word in either language to express my thoughts. For example, in lessons or just talking with my companion in spanish I will have been talking for a little bit and then out of nowhere a random english word will fly out and I don't realize it cause I'm just saying what I'm thinking. Oh well, all of the elders here who are american say that for the first 4 months or so you grow to be able to speak spanish fluently but you lose your english and then after a couple more months it comes back. So if my grammer and english continue to get worse and worse in my emails, don't judge until you have learnt another language. :)

It was really fun to read an email from each and everyone of you! I don't have time to respond about every little detail about the trip to MI but it sure sounded like a bunch of fun! Thats really really cool about Steven's mission call too, tell him congrats from me! Mom thanks for letting me know about the package! I have a zone conference this next friday so hopefully it gets here sometime during the week so that I can recieve it friday but if not, I get it whenever our zone leaders go to the mission offices again. Which actually should be in a week from the following monday because its transfers and one of our zone leaders is done with his mission so maybe I will get it then. So the amount of time it takes for me to get a package will vary greatly, especially if I am in an area outside of Tijuana, but I will take any treats you want to send, especially chocolate stuff, cause they have american chocolate here but I don't want to buy it and all the other candy here is covered in chili and is kinda nasty haha.

I have a couple of things that I left at home thinking that I wouldn't want that I do want now if you could send them eventually when you send another package. There are some backpack clips that I took off my backpack that are in my closet I believe that I want, and also there is that watch that Erik gave me that is in my closet that I wouldn't mind having. I don't think it will get stolen - the whole hype about Tijuana has actually turned out to be rather disappointing. I'm guessing more missionaries get mugged in Chicago or New York because the only missionary I've heard of thats gotten mugged ended up losing like 5 pesos and they didn't want anything else. So I don't think I'm going to come home with a bunch of crazy stories like I thought I was going to, which is good and bad. Can't decide which. :)

The work here is going well but at times is a little frustrating. So we have two wards and really before had only been working in Altos but this last week started to work more in Palmeras. The bishop in Altos was called the week I got here so he is on fire and is super awesome and helps us out a lot and the bishop of Palmeras avoids us and it took 3 fallen through appointments to catch him at his house to teach his family a lesson so he is a little bit harder to work with. Up until last week neither of the wards had ward mission leaders so it was hard to know who to work with in the wards but yesterday both wards got them so we are super excited for that. When I first got here, the members were really kinda hesitant about talking to us and giving us referals, and I think its because the missionary before me here that was with my current companion, this was his last area so he was super dead and would boss all the primary kids around so I don't think he was very trusted or liked haha. But slowly I think the members are starting to trust us more because for the last two weeks teenagers have brought there friends to church and pretty much walked up and said "here teach my friend!" and also we have had members invite us over for food with a less active part member family or such.

Our mission president has really wanted us to focus on getting the members involved in the "obra salvacional" so we have been teaching the active families of our wards the missionary lessons and have been asking them to invite friends to attend the next time we are going to come over and teach. We have had a couple of families actually do it and we have one really solid investigator named Samuel right now from one of the lessons. He is the boyfriend of a less active member who are living together and so hopefully we can get them married and get them both strong in the church. Mom asked about my days and how they are so here it goes: Wake up at 6:30, walk down to the back side of our apartment to start our boiler so we can have hot water, do exercises (which consist of push ups and actually doing the streches/exercises for my back), eat breakfast (which I bought cereal last week so for breakfast this past week I ate the mexican version of frosted flakes), personal study, companionship study, study designated parts in preach my gospel and sections from the "district" series about how to be a better missionary in lots of different aspects, and language study. That all finishes up at 12, then we usually have an appoitment or go and look for old investigators or less actives til 2, at 2 we eat with a member, and then the rest of the day is teaching lessons and walking around looking for less active members or active members to set up appointments right now. We don't do alot of tracting or knocking on doors, its just mostly walking from appointment to appointment. I figured in my head this morning we usually walk from 5-8 miles a day but I'm not exactly sure how much. My shoes are holding out well, I absolutely love one pair and hate the other so I'm just going to wear this pair out first.

I am really excited for conference this next weekend. And even though I'm sure I won't understand 100% of it, I'm really excited to learn and hear the living prophets and apostles speak about the things that we need to hear. If eventually when the conference addition of the ensign comes out, if you could send me a copy in english that would be awesome. :) Hopefully we are able to get some of our investigators to come with us to the stake center a little bit away to watch with us.

Earlier this week I had to go to the mission offices to sign some paper for my visa and Elder Solorzano, Elder George and Elder Johnson were all there also from my district in the MTC and it was really fun to catch up for a couple minutes. Afterwards I was talking with my companion about all of them and talking about learning spanish and he said because I have a pretty good grasp on spanish right now and that I'm good at teaching clearly, there is a chance that I could be training a new missionary after the next transfer. So if I didn't have motivation to study spanish efficiently everyday I sure do now that I know there is a chance that I will be a senior companion is 8 weeks. I am constantly reminded of the need to rely in the Lord everyday in everything, and the days that I do that always go so much better than the days that I don't. I know that as we humble ourselves to rely on Christ and His atonement, that we can not only be happier but also be able to accomplish the things He has in store for us that we can't do without His help.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity that I have to be out here sharing the restored gospel of Christ. It's not the easiest thing to do by far, especially learning a different lanuage but its totally worth it. Just when I feel a little comfortable about understand everything that is going on, somebody will ask a question to me and I will not understand a single word of it. So its definitely a work in progress :)

I hope that all of you are doing well! Les amo y les extraño!

Con amor,

Elder Crockett