Elder Earl Saltillo Mexico Mission: Week two in Zaragoza March 31 2014

I can´t believe another week has already passed! I am still having a great time here, and a lot of stuff has been happening in Zaragoza!

We have a lot of people we are teaching right now. A lot of them are less-active members, and the rest are investigators. But a lot of the less-active families have children that have not been baptised yet. I am really lucky to be here in Zaragoza. The people here are so kind. I feel really popular here, because almost everyone here waves to me and my companion as we are walking. Many times a day while we are walking to a lesson, people will call us over and ask us about our Church. A lot of the time they are inactive members who want to come back. It is great. Every single person we have asked has agreed to talk to us. The people here are very humble, and the Lord has definitely been preparing the people of Zaragoza for us to come. Just this last week we got 12 new investigators! And, this Saturday we have our first Baptism! Her name is Ximena (the X makes a H sound) her family has been inactive for a while, and she is 9 years old. Her and her family were at Church on Sunday! We have also been teaching Ximena´s cousin Emiliano and his family. He is 10 and he is also supposed to be baptised this weekend, but I am not sure if it is going to happen. He really wants to, and his Mom has also agreed to be baptised, but can´t decide when she wants to. This Sunday, we called them to remind them to come to Church, and they said that they would be there. But, it turns out that the Father of the family ended up telling them that they couldn´t go to Church, and that Emiliano could not be baptised. It is really dissapointing, and unfortunately, we haven´t had the chance to meet his father yet, because he works everyday until 10 p.m., but we are trying to talk to him as soon as possible, to try to work things out.

Now I want to talk a little about the town I am in. Zaragoza isn´t small, but it isn´t really big either, and there are quite a few people living here, and almost all of the houses are really small and close together. Somehting that I love about here is that there are a bunch of different animals here. A bunch of birds, including Eagles, goats, sheep, horses, donkeys, squirrels, and billions of chickens. I wouldn´t be surprised if the chicken population was larger than the human population. There are also big turtles in the rivers, and a bunch of Dogs. Dogs everywhere. I am not to fond of the dogs, but there are also quite a few cats, and I like the cats. A lot of people also have pet rabbits and hamsters as well.

There are also a bunch of rivers here. They built this city on top of and around the rivers. In some places there are holes in the sidewalk with a river flowing under it. I have also seen houses built on top of the rivers, and rivers flowing in the middle of a sidewalk, it is really cool.

The food here is good, but it seems like I am eating the same thing every day. We are fed by a member everyday, which I am extremely grateful for, excpecially since the people here don´t have a bunch of money. But everday, it is meat, rice, beans, tortillas, and juice. Another thing that is kind of funny is that everyone calls the juice Kool-Aid. Even if it is not Kool-aid. They call Tang Kool-Aid, and I have even heard someone call Coca-Cola, ¨Kool-Aid de Coca¨, So when people ask me if I want some Kool-Aid, I don´t know what I am going to get. Thankfully, they also have a lot of Hamburgers here, so I have eaten a few of those. There is a stand near where I live where I can get a Hamburger, fries, a jalapeño and a soda for 25 pesos. about 2 dollars! It is pretty sweet. And one time I even ate the jalapeño! my companion gave me 12 pesos to do it, and I may have cryed

a little bit afterwards, but it was so worth it! The Jalapeños here are much spicier than the Jalapeños in the states.

It is also really hot here. It is 90 degrees Farenheit just about everyday. But one day this week, there was a big Thunder Storm in the morning, and it was overcast all day! It felt so good! But all of the people who live here were freezing. They were all wearing coats, and huddling under blankets. It was a little bit funny. Thankfully, I am in a desert, and it is not humid here, because that would be really bad. It is supposed to get up to 120 degrees here durring the summer. Every town in my mission is really hot except for Saltillo, because it is at a high elevation. We will see how that goes. Yes mom, I will remember to drink lots of water. Lots of clean water.

Well. All in all, it was a really great week, and we are having tons of sucess. Sorry for my spelling. Spanish is messing my spelling up, and I don't have spell check on the computer I am using. Every word has a little red squigly underneath it.