April 28th, 2009

Hey Again!Weeks are definitely going by mcuh faster! Everyone says it speeds up more and more and after 6 months here is just flys by. My comp has 6 months left and he is already worried about going home. Like he wants to for a lot of reasons, but being a missionary is a ONCE in a life time kinda thing. I feel like I will be sad to leave in a lot of ways too. So about the whole language thing... haha This weeks was a more frusterating becuase i think i expected a lot more out of myself. Now that i feel like i have a lot down and can understand a lot, i want to be able to say a lot more and with better grammer. Plus now that i know a lot more my comp corrects me more too... haha But learning in spanish is definitely different now that i understand. Becuase before it was just memorizing things and now i understand and the words mean more... if that makes sense. And i am learning in spanish more, as in they explain soanish words in spanish, which helps a lot for speaking spanish, but hurts my ability to translate. But im okay with that becuase i really just want to be able to speak spanish right now and i really dont care about english right now. becuase english gets me nothing here... haha I can write spanish pretty well too.I had to give a talk on sunday, yes in another language! haha I was not to nervous to speak in front of people at all becuase the ward already is aware of my spanish abilities, but i just wanted to be able to give a really powerfull talk and not suck at spanish. I felt like because im a missionary i need to be able to give good talks that help a lot and was sad i had to read a lot. But once i got up there, after like 2 minutes i felt really good and spoke a lot. And i did read part of it, but after i had no more written i started bearing my testimony and was just able to talk for like 7 more minutes, IN SPANISH!!!!! haha Oh and when i wrote out my talk, it was only two pages, i only had like 8 grammer errors in 2 pages, so that was cool! My comp was impressed at least. And everyone in the ward said they understood it all and was like wait, you have only been here for 2 months right? hahaOh and when we were contacting someone he asked how long we have been here and when i said 2 months here he like freaked out. becuase he is a student and is taking english and wsa asking me questions and stuff about english. But its cool when my comp can use me as an example of the power of the spirit and people can look at me and be like, wow thats cool. becuase that kid learned spanish in like 2 months here! And we teach them how real the help for the spirit is in our lives and learning a language is a small and simple example. haha It was when we were close to a big school that is in our area, its a univeristy and all the classes got out right as we were in the area. It was weird to be around so many people my age... haha Oh and when we were taking to this same guy, he was with a member so they stopped to talk and then we were taking to him. And he asked something about baptism and the member, who is like 22, was like yeah "after you get baptised, you are going to look like him becuase you are so clean" hahaha Becuase i have blonde hair and am white. I thought it was really funny! Because literally NO ONE has blonde hair here besides me. Im white, but im pretty tan now becuase its been pretty hot lately, so its mainly my really bloned hair and height. Its funny to me. Oh and i have heard about the swine flu stuff, but not much. A lot of people here are wearing the face mask things becuase juarez is so big and there are so many people here. We have hand sanatizer and stuff and wash our hands. But i feel like we are really open to getting it becuase we are in random places every day and in peoples house and shake a lot of hands and eat at peoples houses... haha We are just in the street and lot and around a lot. I asked my comp about it and he was just like "we are missionaries" haha! Thats it... I was like okay, I need more faith... haha I really have not heard to much about it. I figure its so much morse here are fatal becuase its so unclean here. And when some one gets the virus they dont go to a hospital at all or dont have the money to do anything about it. So they just end up getting worse and worse.Plus it is just a lot more unclean here, like just everything on the cleaniness level is extremely different. Its just really different than the states, its hard to describe. Our House is really clean becuase me and my comp are both pretty clean peope and i clean a lot on pdays. Like scrub the shower and stuff, becuase we really are just all over the place the whole day. I think in the states thay stopped tracking or such, im not sure. But we are in mexico, we are working all day just like normall.... haha I love it here! I really enjoy living really cheap and ghetto like, its funny to me. Anyways, we stay clean and wash our hands a lot, dont worry, we are doing fine! Well actually i am pretty sure i have a parasite. Not like a really bad one or anything, i actually make jokes about it at this point. But ever since i was sick with food poisening, my stomach is been weird and i get head aches more. I never usally got head aches unless i was really dehidrated. And with i dont have food in my stomach it feels weird, i dont know. Im not sure there is anything i can do so who knows. Oh and the doctor prescribed coke to kill it! haha Have you ever drinken coke to kill a parasite?! I bet not! Its just funny to me at this point. I just love living here and doing the Lords work day in and day out! It really is an amazing expereince. Anyways, so we had an activity this past week that we put on. It was like a sport activity and we ahd a devotional before and stuff. It went really well. We had a lot of people there and everyone had a lot of fun and most importantly we got a lot of contacts like we were hoping to. So that was good. I was the one to do like all of the planning too and get everything together and ask the members to help and such so i was pretty happy it turned out well. It was also to help everyone see that the missionaries are normal fun people too and we had all of our district there too. It was a really good activity and the members responded well to it.Wow... so i feel like i have a million things i want to say. Just so much happends every single week and its hard to include it all. So im trying the best i can... Oh and sorry i suck at responding to letters here. I was good at it in the MTC becuase we had a lot more free time there. Sorry i will be better at it. I think i will have more time to write today too. Oh and my comp, who is really from the striat jungle, always mentions these crazy friuts i have never heard of in my life. Like he sometimes finds these crazy fruits and they have the weirdest names! Like they are big and spiky. and a member who is from close to his house gave him some fruit that is from the south and it was like the size of his head and he was like, "oh its a little small one" and i was like what?! How big are they in your house! haha He is just way funny, i love him! He is a great comp!So we get into some tough situations here, like stuff im like, what do you even do. Like for example, we have a lady, mayela, who is a recent convert. She had a kid with another guy like 2 years ago, but he became an acholic and she kicked him out of the house. Then seh became a member and was bapitsed and then he tried to come back, but she wouldnt let him. And the we taught him and helped him and he is not really clean and has a job and cares about his kid and such and is a good guy. SO now they want to be married and live together. But he cant be baptised if they live together, but they want to get married. The problem is a long long time ago mayela was married to some one else. She is tecnically still married to him becuase she cant get a divorce becuase Mexico's idea to lower the the divorce rate was to make it really expensive. So mayela cant afford a divorce, but they are living togther and would get married tomorrow if they could... what do you do? You know? Its why people here just live together and never get married because a divorce is so dang expensive here. We are working with the bishop and hopefully we can get some help from the members to pay for the divorce.But yeah, the work is going well and we have worked really hard this past week so im really happy about that. We have like 8 people close to getting baptised, so i hope things work out. I keep you updated! haha I am extremely greatful for the opportunity to be a missionary! Its been amazing! The Holy Ghost is a VERY real thing! I KNOW it! I see it everyday in my life and in the lives in our members! He really is there to help us every single day! All we have to do is really ask with a sincere and humble heart! How easy is that! haha I feel like a lot of people fail to do the easiest things becuase it is so easy. I promise its there, and we missing out on a ton if we dont use thing amazing gift! My talk was about the Holy Ghost so i thought aboout it a lot this week and recognized it a lot more.Okay well i am sorry i dont not have more time. I love you all so much and thank you so much for all of your love and support! I cant wait to hear from you soon! I love you!Love,Elder Andrew Davidson