January 13th 2014

January 13th 2014

Hola from Mexico. So yeah we found an apartment and are no longer living on the floor. CELEBRATION!!!!! We're living in the Beverly Hills of Mexico. It's a really nice area with guards and everything. I'm going to try to send a couple of pictures today. The only problem is we don't have a fridge for like a week so our food options are pretty slim for a while haha. Oh and it turns out that it´s a lot further away from our work than the other apartment. Oh well, we're hoping that they'll divide the area soon and put sister missionaries in the apartment that we are living in. And it's okay because it's a lot easier to focus in an apartment that only has 2 elders versus one that has 4. They changed the standards of excellence for our mission this last week. Well, actually the area presidency did. We have to teach between 40 and 60 lessions every week, have 15-20 investigators in sacrament meeting, and every companionship is supposed to baptize every week. It is a lot of work. We tried really, really hard to meet these goals this week, but we fell short. It's okay though. We are trying our hardest. We are supposed to have a baptism this week for Brother G, but he didn't come to church this week. We talked to the zone leaders and they said that we should still baptize him because he has come 4 times and his reason for not coming was legitimate. We have to call the mission president though and ask for his counsel so it's still kind of up in the air. We want him to get baptized, but we want him to understand the covenant that he is going to make first. So at the start of this year I decided that I wasn't going to speak English for the whole year...other than with you guys of course. It´s going pretty well. It's really hard at times but I am learning how to speak in Spanish a lot better. Now it's just a matter of understanding spanish. It will come though. I've only slipped and used English a couple of times. I'm interested to hear what changes that they make in your stake. I saw a poster for the Book Thief movie yesterday. I hope it's good because the book was pretty good. I have a favor to ask. Can you please check my bank accounts periodically?     I have used my Well's Fargo card twice. One in the the temple shop and once in the Bodega Aurrera. If anything is different please let me know and the bank as well. I haven't used the other card at all. Also, I don't know if you guys would be comfortable with this but I was wondering if you and dad could possibly email me a copy of your patriarchal blessings to read. If not it's totally okay. They're very personal. I just thought it would be strengthening to see which promises had come to pass in your lives. Like I said if not don't worry. I can't believe Curtis left already. That's crazy. Please continue to pray for the G. family. We have like 25 investigators but I don't have time to list them all. Love you all.

Elder Schow