Guadalahonkey

Haha, I got sick too (although I´m peachy now), so I guess we still get sick as a family.
They actually figure more than anything that it was probably a mild case of
dengue.  That´s more cool to think about than anything else, now that it´s
all over.  Solid stools and warm showers are always nice, when I can get
them.  More motivation to get up early and take my vitamins every day.

I traveled solo because we had to take care of some visa paperwork.  I came
down to Colima initially with another greenie, but he´s now in Guadalajara
because he had a diabetic episode and they need to keep him close to the
hospitals.  Everything worked out fine, but yes it seemed a bit odd rule
wise.  I was in Guadalajara for less than 24 hours before returning, just
long enough to sign and fingerprint some stuff.

I´m glad there´s some missionary progress over there, we need more converts in the states.  The church in general is pretty big in Mexico, but our zone and our mission has been dropping lately.  I´ll have to see what I can do about that ;)

We had our first baptism thursday, actually.  His name´s Christopher and he
pretty much found the church on his own.  We´ll see when his mom finally
wants to change her life and follow suit, but now he can baptize her, which
is pretty cool.  I didn´t have much to do with teaching him though as his
baptism was planned before I showed up, but it was still good to see.  I´ll
send pictures when I can, but this ciber doesn´t have any SD card slots and
I didn´t bring my camera cord.

We have 4 more baptisms planned for the 6th, but there´s still some work to
do first.  Transfers are on the 1st as well, so we´ll see what happens
there.  Elder Talbot and I purged and rearranged the house anyways though,
so it´ll be nice for whichever of us four is going to stay.  My comp has 6
months, so does the DL, and Elder Talbot has 4.5.  Then again, anything can
happen.

I keep forgetting to mention the ¨magic zone¨ as well.  it´s an area on the
way to Suchitlán where, due to magnetism or something of the sort, if you
turn off your car and leave it in neutral, it will roll up the hill rather
than down.

The president and his wife are great people, who work very hard to help the church in this area.  They are focusing a lot on obedience.  They also have some affinity for scripture memorization of verses related to being a good missionary, and have some very high goals for this year.  They seem energetic and excited though, and I´m definitely glad to have a good mission president.

Random thought: if and when you send another package, ties and socks are always nice.  Shoes I should probably buy here since I can check the size and awesomeness, etc., but other stuff is always great.

I pray for you all frequently.  Let me know what else I can pray for.  I got your attachments btw, and I enjoyed reading them.

I still can´t figure out why nobody knows how to sing in this country, by
the way.

Say hi to everyone for me!

Love,
Elder Lund

Haha, the weather is just peachy here!

Haha, the weather is just peachy here.  A little more dry than FL, but not too much.  It just seems hot when you´re in the sun.  I´ve tanned nicely though.  Too bad I lose tans as fast as I get them :(

I was talking about Japanese and engineering with my DL, Elder Rosas.  He actually understands and reads English perfectly, although he can´t speak it (crazy changing vowels and whatnot).  He understands every word I or Elder Talbot might say in English and his favorite book is A Tale of Two Cities (in English, of course).  He didn´t study any at all though.  He learned English by watching Friends.  Yep, Friends.

We have some good investigators right now (we had 8 at church yesterday in a ward that is notorious for poor attendance), including a family that just popped out of nowhere, having talked with sister misionaries some time back.  They just showed up at church.  There´s a total of 5 of them that have come to church, but we´ll see how things go with time.  We have one baptismal date for the 21st for Christopher, who is also looking into the church school system and intends to major in international relations.  I gave him a hymnbook and he´s got a gospel principles manual, and I also showed him how to find good stuff on lds.org (he more or less reads English as well) like the conferences, as per his request.  There may be more in the future, but as always with people and the work of the Lord, nothing is set in stone.  Interviews with the mission president are this week as well.  Not sure how those are supposed to go or whatever, but I´m sure it will be peachy.

I´m happy for Ashley´s writing skills and success.  I never did get into the whole speechwriting thing, but it seems like she can win awards in pretty much anything she feels like.  Awesomeness!

Tell David not to shoot anyone´s eyes out, and tell everyone I love them.  Take care.

Elder Lund

We had a drop in investigators this week, but not every week is a perfect one.  However, there´s a baptism this Thursday, which is awesome.  I´ll be sure to take some pictures for you.  I´m glad to hear about the missionary work that might be happening back home too.  All our friends need the gospel.  Well, everyone needs the gospel, but we especially like to share it with our friends because we care about them a lot.  I hope it turns out great, and I hope you´re all searching for more opportunities to share and talk about the gospel!

The only address is that of the mission home.  They bring us the mail twice a transfer, so more or less once every three weeks.  That makes packages and letters 100x more awesome when you get them, since you get a bunch and at once, but round trip communication obviously takes FOREVER.

This week I finally got sick!  I still have no clue what it was, but I´m fine now so I suppose it doesn´t really matter.  I also had interviews with the President, which was great.  He considers it an honor to have a missionary of my heritage in his mission, but I suppose I have some work to do before that can be considered justified.

I also went to Guadalajara for a day to take care of some visa signatures and thumbprints, and I went by bus solo.  That was pretty cool.  I only got back this evening, but it´s a 3 hour bus ride, more or less.  The trick is ignorning the onboard movies.

I do in fact remember the circuis.  I was thinking about it not too long ago.  Good memories.

Well I´ve got to go!  Busy day.  I love you all and think about you frequently.

Love,
Elder Lund