8.29.11 -- Navojoa, Mexico

Hey, Heat. Bleh. Although it's okay. We have air conditioning in our room at night. None of the houses here are fully air conditioned, they just have swamp coolers and other things. But we enjoy being cool at night. Shaun, what's your address? Hno. Aten-I haven't figured anything out whatsoever. I still have no idea what I'm doing. It's just not as excruciating now as it was before. I went on exchanges with E. Barragan (from Mexico City) in his area. He's from my generation, meaning he entered the MTC at the same time. His area is super green in parts. Check out the palm trees. We also got caught in a storm on the way back to the house at night. The sky changed in one minute from clear night to a crazy thunderstorm. The whole city flooded and we got soaked within two minutes. It's strange. I remember seeing Hno. Anderson's photos in the MTC (my teacher that served in Guatemala and got drenched a few times as well) and thinking, "Hey, at least I don't have to worry about that." Nope. Also, we have weird flavored yogurt here. Check it out, pineapple, celery, and cactus. And not the cactus fruit, the "leaves." It tasted pretty good. We teach a lot more here, but the baptisms are about the same right now. No one has gotten baptized in this area for a few transfers, but we're working on that. The streets are dirt, unlike Hermosillo, there are less drunks, but less street lights as well, more mud, less air conditioned homes, more bugs (I HATE GNATS SO MUCH), more humble people that listen, more lessons to learn about how the US is incredibly blessed, more things to do. We are also kind of spoiled and have a washer. We also have lizards (desert types, called "cachorras," but they don't go into the shower. They stay in the kitchen. Until we find them. No, we don't kill them. Although E. Villa accidentally cut the tail off of one of them when he closed a window too fast. He didn't know the lizard was there. We went this week to teach the cousin of a family that got baptized about 6 months ago. We had been teaching her and her 3 small kids for about two weeks, when she told us she would be moving soon to a small village outside of the city, where we can't go. We expressed disapointment, and then shared a message about the Atonement with them. At the end, I began to speak about the family, and how God doesn't want individuals in heaven. He wants fathers, mothers, and children, together, in heaven. I hadn't thought we had done an especially good job stressing the family in the prior weeks, but at the end, she looked at us and said that she had never heard of eternal families before, and that she wanted to continue learning. I was a little surprised, because like I said, I had thought we hadn't done a good job on that. But hey. We did do a good job. I hope she returns to Navojoa at some point. The missionaries will be there to help. Time. Adios Elder Humbert I need to talk more spiritually and less about things, I know. More on that next week.