Sooo this week was interesting...it took me a few days to fully recover from being sick, now I feel normal:) So here´s the list:

There is a mission blog! And I am in it or was last week! 

So I think one of my least favorite things here is the immense amounts of food I have to eat. A few days ago I actually snuck food out in my backpack to avoid barfing from eating too much. I was actually gagging at every bite.

We helped but up a wall this week, was pretty fun:)

Ok so there was the absolutely hardest rain I have ever seen before in my life this week. For like  half an hour it looked like the sky was falling. It was incredible!

We had transfers today. Both me and my companion are staying in Santiago...I am still not sure what to think about that!

So we had some watermelon at a members house that they got from this big semi, and I swear it was the same exact kind as I grew! It looked and tasted exactly the same! It was so dang good:)

I really miss watermelon, apple cider, root beer, steak and spaghetti. I have though about building a cider press...see how that goes:)

So yesterday in church we had a class and this guy jumped from topic to topic, here's the list in order:

happiness

obedience

faith

taking care of your kids

the poor

attitude

poor again

go to the temple

fast offerings

          it was awesome:)

so I have learned a lot this transfer. I mean a lot. I think the biggest things are patience and how to rely on the Lord. There were times in these past 6 week where I have never felt more alone in my life. I mean really, really alone. And it was the worst. But every time I was able to pray for comfort. The mission is really hard, impossible without the Lord, and so you learn to rely on him:) And with those hard times I have felt incredible joy from seeing people change their lives to follow Christ:) It really is a wonderful thing:)

I thing everybody should read Alma 5. It is probably thee most intense chapter in the whole book of Mormon, really cases you to look at your life! Everybody needs to STUDY it!!:)

Well I love all you guys so much! Buenas Suerte con todo!!!!!:)

Elder Paz

I have joined the club, Zack

 Well, here is the history of how came to feel the worst physically in my whole life:

Ok. Well I can officially join the club of getting sick really bad on your mission. So on Saturday in the afternoon I started feeling really tired and was a bit constipated. Then in the evening I got the chills and my stomach started aching. Then when we were at the bishopes house I through up quite a bit, luckily outside. We went home early. So I had my first round of diaria at around 9. Then I went to bed. During the night I through up about 3 more times. Then at about 3 or 4 I started the rest of the diaria. The first time I pooped my pants. BAD. I mean I still don{t know how I'm going to clean them. And lets just say I also ended up taking a shower right after that. Oh and also during all of this keep in mind that I have the worst headache I have ever had before. And it was really hard to make decisions, like it took me about 10 minutes to decide whether to shower or not. So then I had a night of getting up to go to the bathroom many, many times. So by about 12 Sunday I wasn't throwing up, but still had diaria, and a fever. I started taking some Tylanol and diaria pills and got that fairly under control. So yesterday I was either laying on my bed or sitting on the toilet. It sucked. So last night I woke up twice to do some hardcore pooping, still diaria. Today I haven't had too much diaria, but I feel super super weak, but I{m pushing through it:)

Well I hope you enjoyed it!!:)

This week was really good! Here`s the update:

Zack I have now seen a cock fight, it was wicked awesome!!

I ate morte chicharon this week, I really wish I never had to do that again, it is revolting to me...

Also had the opportunity to try a thing called chilincuelis. Essentially they are little worm/caterpillar things. No me gusta.

Also I still do not like chicken gizzards!

Our mission is a non contacting mission, so every person we visit is a referral.

Got 3 new investigators this week!

There is a bumload of rain here!

Happy B day Dave!

My homesickness gets better each week!

Maurilio is being baptized this Friday!!!

So the Mexican Independence day was yesterday. That equals no sleep. Pretty much from about 6 in the evening to 2 there were fireworks and loud music playing all the time. We did get to go to the rtop of our roof and see the fireworks though, ours are much much much better:)

I have been having some intense Uno games with the comp...

So one time this week I was walking along and I bent down to avoid a tuna, the frute of the nepales, but not enough. I got smacked right in the head by it, and I found that tunas have many, many spines:) It took my comp 1 and a half hours to take out all the spines:)

On Saturday we ate 5 times. The last time we ate I had to say a prayer before we ate so I wouldn't throw up. It pretty  much was the worst:)

Oh so one time this week week we were about to leave from an appointment, and I tried to say can we end with a prayer, but instead I said podemos orinar? which means, can we urinate? :):)

So I have also been having frustrations with my comp. He likes to have like hour and a half lessons, and the rule is 45 minutes, maybe up to an hour. I have talked to him a couple times and he still doesn't care...not sure what to do...

Well I know this church is true! Joseph Smith really was a prophet and organized the church of Jesus Christ back on the Earth! Our church has all of the commandments and covenants that we need to return to God and live eternally with our families!

Thanks for all of the love and prayers! I can really feel them!!:) Have a great week!

Elder Paz

This week was sweet! Ok, here´s what happened:

My comp highlights everything when we read stuff out of pmg, like he´ll like a section, so he´ll highlight it, and then end up highlighting the whole chapter:)

My Spanish is improving I think, I am getting a lot better in the lessons!

One of our investigators brought us cupcakes, it pays to be teaching a baker:)

So I tried a wonderful new food called Chicharon, Zack and Dustin will know what I am talking about. But for the rest of you, essentially it is large chunks of spicy pig fat in a soup. No me gusta.

Also had more chicken gizzards, still don´t like those...

Saw a sheep being straight up skinned and gutted while hanging on a tree this week.

Right now it is very rainy and very cold...

Oh so there´s this member in our ward that we ate this with this week. He is older, and spent 38 years working in the states, so he knows English fairly well. Also he brought a bunch of money back with him to Mexico and so he has a really big house, like 5 tvs, scented toilet paper, and real nice f-150:) Also we got to have shrimp, fish, and crab, it was awesome:)

Cantaloupe juice is amazing...

There is a american, white lady in our ward teaching english, weird!

o something I have notice with Mexican men is that once they get to ohhh 70 plus they begin to have an eternal battle with flies. Every time I see an older man he is sitting down and just smacking away at the flies:)

Zack was right, there is no such thing as an ugly Mexican kid...

Our ward chorister sings really loudly, and really tone-deafly so the whole ward can know what pace to go. Unfortunately the piano player usually doesn't agree so it can be a bit off sometime:)

We live over a bakery and when we go down we go through this storage room where the baker is letting the cakes sit, I always want to smash one...

The minimum wage here is 88 pesos a day, or about 7 dollars! A day!

Right now I am in Pachuca! I was finally able to get a camera! Man it is weird not to see all the animals and everything in the streets! Also I am super excited because we are having pizza for lunch!

I blessed my oil this week. It was so cool to actually feel the power of the priesthood flow through me while I was blessing it!!:)

So guess what?!?!?!? We committed Mourilio to baptism! His baptism was supposed to be this weekend, but he didnt come to church this week so it won´t work out:( I don´t know how your missions were, but the investigators have to go to 5 Sundays of church before they are baptized!

So we had this lesson with this old couple this week. The lady was 86, and the man said he was 110;) We later asked his brother and found out that he was only 96, but still that's old! So the man really really like to talk, and he would cut us off like every time. One time he did so to my comp and I just couldn´t help myself! The next 20 minutes or so I was either laughing or holding it back!!:) I felt bad, but something just overcame me! It´s ok though because by the end the couple, especially the man, were laughing with me, even they didn't know the actual reason:) All I could tell them was ¨there's a joke in my mind´ :)

Well folks I know this church is true and that I am doing the lords work!!;) Hasta proxima semana!

Elder Paz

mexico!

I had an awesome week this week! I made a ton of improvements in the language and am having a ton more fun:) So here are the deets:

Found two scorpions so far, don't worry, we took care of them.

It rains quite a bit, but now it{s only like every other day or so, so I am happy about that:)

I had chicken gizzards the other day, no me gusta...

There are a ton of donkeys here.

Every once in a while someone will ride their house into town, that is always exciting:)

Also in el campo, the country, everybody has chickens and turkeys running around everywhere. In the city there are about a million dogs.

I was looking at the photobook yesterday, can not wait to go back to Hawaii!!:)

The people are very very very nice and humble. I've been in some pretty sketchy houses. Sometimes they only have 2 chairs, so they stand and we sit. Also no toilet seats a lot of the time...also they always offer you something to eat or drink, always, no matter how well they do or do not know you.

I practiced my sewing skills last night because I got a couple rips in my suit pants, I am not sure if you would be proud of me or not...:)

Oh so there is this one part of our area which is like a few miles out of town so we usually take a taxi, but there wasn't one yesterday, so we straight up hitchhiked out to it:)

Toilets of the members do not have seats.

 So we really have only 2 investigators that are really progressing. The first one is Yazaira, and she is only like 9 years old, so I{m not sure she counts as much, her pop is inactive.

The other one is Maurilio. He is awesome:) He doesn't have a ton of faith, but he really wants to. He is about 18 or 20. Girlfriends a member. So we had this awesome talk/lesson on Sunday with him, where me and my comp were able to relate to all of the problems he has been having. The Spirit was so strong there, the promptings of what to say and what scripture to share just came to me, even though sometimes I didn't even know what he had said:) It made me so much more excited to serve! So glad I have the opportunity to teach him:)  

Ok so this week I progressed a lot in the language. I am pretty much at the point where I can discern what people are saying, I just need the vocabulary. This week a couple people told me that I have really good pronunciation:) Also my comp told me that I{m doing a lot better than most other gringos:)

My homesickness has gotten a lot better!

Well those are the highlights for this week. ¡Hasta luego!

Elder Paz (I am elder peace (paz) down here)