Hello.
Well this week was super exciting and yes, Elly is right, you pronounce Elder Tellez´s name like Teyez. He does speak English...After high school he went to san antonio in texas to study english, so he speaks pretty well. Also I dont know if you know, but Mothers day in Mexico is always May 10th. So I am not to sure about when we can call, but I am pretty sure that that day falls on a Tuesday. But in the next zone conference I know that they are going to talk about that.
So, this week was very interesting. First of all, our house is super close to everything. We have a little store that is right in front of our house and we also have a hot dog stand that sells hot dogs for 11 pesos right in front of the house too. We are about 15 minutes away from the mission offices by bus and we live close to the Church. So you know what that means...every morning at 6:00, its Sochiloa A Elders Vs. Sochiloa B Elders at the church. It is super fun. We play basketball for like a half hour or so in the morning, then we shower and eat and study and do all the other fun things that missionaries do.
Well I feel like we are pretty much starting from scratch here in Sochiloa. Elder Tellez and I started our transfer together with a prayer and a fast that we are going to work as hard as we can and we have asked the Lord to help us find the people that he is preparing to be baptized. We have done alot of walking this week. Probably more than I have ever done in my entire mission. We walked so much that I have started to get blisters. In this area there are hardly any people outside, so when we see someone we take advantage. But we have recieved alot of references this week. We want to start working with the members more in this ward, so we have made plans to make our pastel de galletas marías (the lime cakes) to give to some of the members. Hopefully, we can excite them with the work and they will have more desires to look for people that we can teach and come with us to teach. Oh, I am the only gringo in the ward haha. So this will be a new experience, but all of the ward members have told me that I speak really good Spanish, but I also think that they just have not had an american in their ward for quite some time haha.
One of the miracles that happened this week was that we were walking (big surprise, I know) and we were so tired of walking that we decided to sit down and rest in front of a house. Then an old woman opened the door to the house and we started to talk to her. She then told us that she was a member of the church and has been inactive for many years due to her health. So she invited us in and we talked for a little bit, then she asked if we could give her a blessing. We then gave her a blessing and she told us that she almost never gets up to check to see who is outside of the house. The chances that we were at that house at that time of day and we decided to stop and rest there are pretty much impossible. And it was so amazing how the Lord puts worthy priesthood holders in the paths of the people who need our priesthood service.
Well I dont have any pictures of the house. Sorry! We had such a busy day today that there was not even time to take pictures. We spent most of the morning cleaning and looking for a member that could help us wash our clothes. Also the assistants called us yesterday and told us that we were going to have interviews with the president today so that only complicated our busy schedule. And when we arrived at the mission offices for our interviews, the president told us that he didnt have us scheduled for interviews. Turns out the APs made a mistake, but the president was like "oh well, I still want to talk with you." He told us that he knew that we were companions in Libertad and that He knows that Sochiloa needs our help. He asked us what we are doing right now and what our goals are for the area. All and all it was a pretty cool talk/interview.
Then we went shopping. And at the beginning of transfers everyone goes crazy with buying things, because everyone wants to buy things that will last 6 weeks. So we got together with the Sochiloa B Elders to go shopping. Also it turns out that Walmart and Sams are right next to each other like they are in Los Mochis so that was good. So we bought all of our things in bulk at Sams, then all the other things that we needed at Walmart. We ended up getting so many things that we need for our house and food that we wanted to eat for the week. But luckily we planned ahead to call a taxi. So right when we finished shopping, our taxi pulled up and me and Elder Tellez and the Sochiloa B Elders loaded the car and went to our houses. It was so nice to not have to deal with the struggle of taking the bus. And it saves so much time.
But that is pretty much all that happened this week. I promise that I will send pictures next week. We are still in the process of cleaning. And there was no time to take pictures. But I will take pictures of the house and our morning Basketball games. We could really use your prayers to help us find new people to teach. Also I really do not want to walk as much as we walked last week. Haha!
Love you so much.
Elder Snyder
