This week I’ve held a lot of animals. And I can prove it with my awesome animal pictures. cool huh!!
A sheep and an iguana...that has now run away. I picked up these little dogs... oh and I found a baby rattlesnake and tried to throw it to the kids in school cause they wanted it but I threw it too hard and it landed on the roof.... AND the bird is the best of all… I shall tell my story....ok...sooooo... a bird flew into the house and my companion caught it and I took a picture of him and then I wanted a picture so I took it and after like 20 seconds it started to squirm around a lot and I just thought...weird...but ok....and as you can see from my picture...it’s dead...I must have killed it by accident...I’m a terrible person...but I repented, I think I might bury it in my back yard.
THANKS FOR ALL THE MAIL I GOT LAST WEEK!!! I got the Holmes Christmas card and a card from the Ranes - thanks!! And the Braziers - thanks!! and I got that sweet ORIGAMI boat making kit....it is SO hard hahahah but I made a canoe :) Thanks Aunt Julie!!! and Annnnnnie thanks, your the greatest cousin ever :) and I got MANSION 14's Christmas card ---- SWEEEEET!! :) Thanks a ton, yup and a wonderful package with a bunch of hilarious random stuff in it :) and a letter from BIG JOE, thanks so much. I love your letters, and I’ll write you back soon! Thanks family for everything, I love you so much, I have the greatest family ever. I love you Grandpa Dick and Grandma Nancy and Grammary, thanks so much for everything!!!
I have another new favorite hobby. When people tell me about where they worked in the USA---now I always ask "did you have papers" and most don’t...AND THATS THE BEST cause then I talk to them about how they crossed the frontera and its sooooooo funny!!! hahahah I love it...and one of my new goals in life is to cross the frontera ILLEGALLY someday...and I shall. They have like HUGE full standing tunnels with lights and everything, and its only 100 bucks!! or you can walk for a week or there are routes that are just a day near NOGALES---served there!!! and Tucson and stuff, I know all the secrets, and I have contacts that I will use when I need to cross...and tons of the people try, and try and get caught and usually get in after the like 6th time trying hahahah so great...I’m doing it...if anyone would like to join me, they may...the end. Stick it on "the list"
Somebody gave me the ultimate compliment the other day...she said "do you speak English?" Which to me means, -you speak such good Spanish that I can’t even tell its not your native language!" not true. But it was great.
I was opening starbursts in my mouth one day and I had this brilliant idea that I would open two at once, so I tried...BIG fail. I had to take one out and unwrap it and I just swallowed the other one with the wrapper on it...cause I’ve never done it before and --- why not right? Didn’t kill me so that’s probably the new way I’ll eat them...
I sat in the front of the bus the other day and there is this bar and I pretended the ENTIRE ride to Huejozingo that I was on a roller coaster...it was fantastic, I would throw my hands up on all the hills and everything. AND the buss driver was texting.
Oh and I’ve seen that they totally do that cool thing here where they carve the bushes into animals...uh so awesome, I’m totally doing that at my house.
I introduced my comp to all the members and stuff and we spent like the whole week in the colony pretty much and seriously walked like 10 miles a day in the dust. I love walking though and just sing in my head the whole time. I met a lot of the ladies in the colony that I knew but really didn’t know that well and I got to know them WAY better and it was awesome! There are a lot of inactives over there, and we talked with them a lot and I think a lot of them are going to go back to church. We talked with one of the old bishops for an hour in the middle of his field that is an inactive and had this great conversation with him. We also met with this hermana and taught she and her sons this great lesson and I told her I could make tortillas....cause I CAN!! So we made some tortillas but I kept MESSING UP when I put it on the stove thing, and then I just gave up after two cause I feel stupid hah but I CAN make them :) I think we're going to be doing some good things here in Atexcac. I think it’s going to turn around a little...we've talked to a lot of people this week, and the members and the randoms we meet like LOVE me hahaha I think its cause my comp is super serious all the time and never smiles hah... but I’m making some great friends here :)
We have been asking tons of people for references as well and that’s going well. We taught Divorcios friend Pedro the first lesson and challenged him to pray, which he said is really difficult for him to grasp the concept of prayer and he is confused how to do it. We went over it a bunch of times but I think he’s not really educated a lot, and he’s had a lot of drug problems in the past and his brain is just kinda slow I think, but we're helping him a lot and I think he is GREAT and will get baptized in the future, we'll meet with him again this week :) We didn’t have water pretty much this entire week starting Tuesday. NONE...I took a bucket shower with water I boiled on the stove, then I tried to use the heater water thing and blew out all the electrical in the kitchen, yup, all of it, so we'll prob move our fridge tonight cause it doesn’t work....I swear it wasn’t my fault though, it was the cords, it wrecked 3 of the outlets already, so dumb....anyways we had some water last night and I had to rig it up to the hose to get it to the top of the house and it took like an hour with my Leatherman and those metal little strips, and tightening the hose to the hose....it was a pain....BUT I SHOWERED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WEEK.....nah just kidding that’d be nasty...but not if your in NH...then it would be ok...
Church was great :) I love talking to people and making friends. We were walking down the street and then in this little off street thing with a bunch of dirt and these 3 guys were drinking and called me over and I talked with them and told em the usual...I’m from Australia and stuff...well this guy thought I was awesome hahaha and I was just super nice, cause some missionaries are lame to drunk people and tell em off and stuff, but these are the friends we have to make, and I’ll tell you why...first...they need the most help...SECOND, they come in handy...I saw him again later that day and he offered us soda this time, the other time he offered me beer hah, ALWAYS HAPPENS TO ME...not my comp though hahaha anyways I saw him again and shook his hand and stuff and he wasn’t drunk this time, but then on SUNDAY it was awesome. k so the creepy devil people with their masks are running around in the street, and no lie there were 40 totally black with oil and ashes with devil masks and horned masks and devil triton things and chains with the little skirts on, and it is creepy, and we got lucky with a ride after church through it all and they tried to touch us and stuff...BUT later that day we were at the church again and they were passing by and I had my pvc pipe to beat them if they touched me...and they are walking by the church and we are behind the gate and my DRUNK BUDDY yells (he’s one of the creepy people) "HEY BUDDY"in english ahahah and comes over and talks to me in English and asks me how I’m doing and stuff, and he’s totally wasted hah, and I asked him what he was doing and stuff and we talked for like a minute then he left, then when they came back to go back up the street he came over again to talk to me though the gate hahaha and I was like I wanna picture!!! and so...best thing ever...he calls over all his little devil friends and I got a picture, hahah which is on the other email hahaha then after, he’s like you want picture too and I was like YA! hah so I left the gate and there were like 10 of them and I told my drunk friend "don’t touch me and tell your friends not to either" and he’s like ya and then he tells all of his friend "NO LE TOCA EL!!" hahahah so they didn’t touch me and I got this epic picture with all of them hhahahahah it was fantastic...THAT is why I make friends with the weirdos and the drunk people hahahah so great! haha it was the funniest thing ever, and he is super nice to me and like protected me from the other guys. I’m so glad I talked to that guy...kinda like in Billy Madison when the Adam Sandler apologized to that guy that he picked on in high school (repentance) then at the end he shoots the guy and Adam Sandler doesn’t die.....protection.. yup. That’s how I’ll relate it today. And people always ask me if my "puebla" is like this or is like the city, and I really have no idea what to say so I say it’s exactly like it is here hahah...it is kinda……..there is fruit, and horses, and DOGS, and I eat torillas and stuff...yup
I FINISHED THE BOOK OF MORMON on Thursday....then I wanted to have an epic spiritual experience and read the last chapter on my roof, so I did, and like 6 verses before it was over my loco comp came up and told me I couldn’t be on the roof alone---so ridiculous, totally killed my moment...but I finished it....then I read the chapter again in the morning in peace and it was great YET AGAIN! but I really do feel like I’ve improved a lot in Spanish from it. I don’t know if I’d call it fluent, but I can definitely talk to people now and understand like 87 percent of what they're saying...and I’ve started to read D&C and I’m 100 pages in cause I’ve been reading a lot, it is SWEEEEET! It’s very repetitive but there are some great thing in there and I’ll share some of what I really liked....I highlight A TON cause there is tonnnnnnnnns of good stuff, but I’ll just give you a little taste of the goodness.
Section 29:6 -- I love when it talks about united in prayer...because its really important as missionaries to be united in prayer siempre, because if we are united in prayer our prayers are going to be stronger, and we've decided that we are going to fast twice this month for the people here and pray a lot :) thing will happen :)
29:7 - finding the elect---it’s what we do...I just like this one :)
3:20 --- mexicans...
6:34 ---- this ones a sweeeet missionary scripture and I love it
9:14 - I like this one too
33:16 - This one is GREAT to share with people and I’m definately gonna use it this next week and the rest of my mish... it is perfect for those people that say they don’t want to get baptized cause they don’t know enough and want to know EVERYTHING before they are baptized.. "the spirit quickenith all things" -- so true, once someone is baptized and have the holy ghost, they are way more receptive and will learn a TON more of the spiritual things that they want to know! And I can see that SO clear in Francisco, who I baptized...he is AMAZING and knows SO much!!! He has learned SO much stuff since he has been baptized and is growing so much, it’s amazing, you can totally see the spirit helping him learn and grow...its crazy...I love this verse and its such a great one to share with people right at the beginning to let them know with the power of the holy ghost they are going to grow so much faster than they can on their own without it :)
35:13-14 ----- these are sweet versus...I love how they use the word "THRASH" hahahah I think its perfect :P awesome hah
yup I’m learning a lot, it’s so great, I’m going to finish the D&C in this change :) For p-day today we played arena soccer in Cholula an hour away...it was sick cause I got to see all my American buddies. I’m really good friends with one of them and we juggled and talked for like an hour hahah it was great, hes sick. He came in the group after me, so he’s younger than I am in the mish, we have fun... yup. Well, I haven’t been able to send mail the last week and this week tambien but hopefully I’ll get something out on Friday when we have a district meeting :) love ya’ll thanks for everything....
Love, Elder Bertha
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