Montezuma visits, but only for a day

Alright it's still dry and hot here in Mexico. Where is the snow? Oh well, what to say? Thank you for the weather report, the sad thing is that’s the temp around noon; in the mornings it gets down to about ohh, I’d guess 40 or 50 and the same thing happens around 7 or 8 at night. Well not that fast but the temp starts to plunge instead of falling after about that time. So we had the sniffles the other day after we forgot our jackets the night before, and, yes, mom I can hear exactly what you are thinking desculpeme por favor.

Elder Bell and I are gonna use a member’s laptop in the chapel, its got wireless, lets see if you could be expecting a call around 4 that would be awesome! (We get to phone call or Skype twice a year with our missionary: at Christmas and again on Mother’s Day). It may be a few minutes later than that but I will be calling! Hmm, let’s see what you all wrote this week!? Please give a huge thank you to the Downs for me and also to Sis Hantz: muchas gracias mi amigos!

Let’s see: the way mail works for me here is like this: once it gets to the mission home, it gets distributed with all the other pouch mail to the zone leaders when they have meetings with the assistants; and the zone leaders give the pouch mail to the district leaders when they have their weekly meeting; and the district leaders hand out individual mail when they get it . . . Seeing as how its about a 3 1/2 hr bus ride from here to DF it'll get here eventually!

  

Glad to hear that even an old hand (like you), no pun intended, can shake in his boots. (I had written to Zach last week that I had the chance to teach in High Priest group lesson last week, and it made me pretty nervous!).

What else: congrats on the new bed Katie! I hope you like it! No cookies here but I have gotten to probar algun de los dulces aqui in mexico y yo quiero decir son muy bien y picante! [try some of the sweets here in mexico and I mean very good and spicy!]

Isaak: I was so excited to read your letter thank you for it. It’s wonderful to hear from you I’m glad your practicing with the hymnal, its fun to sing  and thank you for the story you sent me about the sheep.

Ian: who you calling old man??? Just kidding! I love you Ian I hope you have a good Christmas too!

If you can imagine an inverted triangle of raw meat on a spit which is rotating in front of a flame hot enough to keep it warm, that’s how they make tacos pastor. They reach up and slice off some of the meat and throw it on the grill (flies and all) but yeah, I’ve decided to blame my encounter with montezuma on those tacos! But he left after one day, so it wasn’t too bad. Good job on your pillow too!

I’m almost insulted: Mexico actually reminds me a lot of Missouri!

Vaya con Dios

Elder Zach Nelson

For a little culture of his new area, Elder Nelson and Elder Bell toured this gold mine during one of their P-days (preparation days). Too bad, he tells us they weren't handing out samples on the day they visited!

Hello from Mexico!!!!

Yo family what’s up?

If its real for you you’ve no idea how it feels for me! Anyways it’s been awesome I got here and had dinner with Presidente y la Hermana (President and Sister Villareall, they are in charge of the Missionaries), pancakes, go figure! Right but it’s probably the last time I’ll have pancakes in two years! Sorry about my typing, the keyboards are a bit weird here, well, odder than I’m used too. So let’s see I stayed Wednesday night in the mission home which is crazy like it could be in MTC cribs!

Mom would probably love it here everywhere I’ve been has tiled floors and backsplashes. It’s been awesome though, lets see what else: after we left the mission home we took a taxi to the bus terminal and then about an hour ride to Toluca and stayed the night with the elders in Xonacatlan (shaun-a-cat-lan). Then we had a meeting in which Elder and Sister Johnson from the Area 70 (other adult leaders in the Mexico City area) came and spoke to us. So we had to get up at 5:30 to shower, and then take 2 different busses to the chapel in Metepec. It’s the first chapel I’ve seen with an elevator. The meeting was really cool cause all of it was in Spanish and I could understand all of what was being said!

After the meeting we did an exchange and I went to another junta for investigators with some other elders in our zone while Elder Bell (my first companion and trainer. He’s from Provo, UT) went up to our area with another elder in our zone. They took up the luggage. Myself and another elder got a ride up with the Atlacomulco Bishop, which happens to be our area, so it was good. I had my

first street

tacos Saturday night in Independencia. I think its a collonia sobre toluca but yeah all the elders I’ve met have been awesome people! That reminds me: Elder Bell is almost ready to go home! Sounds fun right? He’s at 22 months and will be going home in February.

Hmm what else casi everyone here is nice and friendly as long as you don’t count the Catholic priest whose door we knocked on last night…he was a little mean. Here in Mexico, apparently, the Catholic Church gives out stickers to its members to put on their house: ESTE HOGAR ES CATOLICO. Or: this house is Catholic. We only met a few duros and beside that it was a good night last night we spent a few hours out tracting. Oh yeah only a few areas are bikers and one of those isn’t ours! So yeah lots of walking!! Glad I got some good shoes. Thank Joy for me please

HMM what are some cool stories? Elder Bell and I didn’t have anything to do the night before the meeting so we went tracting in Xonacatlan and well ….. wait I want to give you my live stock count so far: horses IN THE STREET BIENG RIDDEN 1;  sheep about 30; turkeys about 10; and dogs . . .  no sé muchos! perro haha see what I did there actually you might not in Spanish you can say but 2 ways para. . . excuse me three ways por para and pero the Spanish word for dog is perro okay hopefully now you get it! 

Anyways here are some rules that I’ve got to follow the secretaries took my mp3 and put it in a safe in the home I think no sé pero es no me importa and if I wanna listen to music I need to buy a walkman and speakers, it’ll be cheaper here so don’t even think about it!!!! If I want to write anyone outside of you, my immediate family I have to do it by hand the old fashioned way so I’ve asked Presidente if it’s all right for me to write to grandma no word yet. Umm according to Elder Bell I will get to Skype you all for Christmas and all that needs to be done is for you all to set up a Skype account for you and me and ´friend´ them with each other and send me the log in stuff. So yeah Katie and Charles, you need to get to work on that since you know . .. mom and dad MAY, no emphasis added . . . at all, need help with that.  And, oh yeah, you’ll probably need a webcam too.

That is something mom and dad can do! Everyone behave and keep up the good work! I’ve been hearing about Isaak: I’m so happy to hear that you’ve started to get down reading; and Katie if you can send me a sound clip from the choir concert or at least a pic of the ensemble, that would be great. But you can leave out the band and orchestra, since Charles isn’t in the orchestra yet.

I love you all and have to go!

Vaya con Dios

Elder Nelson