The Three Mud-dust-eers

Buenos!

Some fun news this week, I got put in a trio! One missionary that came down here the same day I did had to go back home for some personal reasons, so we moved houses and moved in with another Elder, named Elder Jensen from Pleasant Grove, UT. I've heard that some people don't like being in trios, but so far it's been a lot of fun. Makes it a lot more fun when there's another person to add to the conversation, and easier to learn the language quicker since I can just ask him what a word or phrase means in Spanish and he can reply to me really quick instead of me having to write it down and look it up later.

There hasn't been a whole lot of work this week, but I guess that's pretty normal for this area. We still do have people to teach, and it's fun and satisfying to see them make progress and have a change of heart for the better.

Learned that Spanish is different from Portuguese because of all the time the Moors spent in Spain way back when, and that was kind of a lightbulb moment for me when I heard that. It makes a lot more sense why there are more words like "Guadalajara" that sound Arabic in Spanish than there are in Portuguese. That was really cool to learn, and now one of my favorite party facts.

We saw some bright orange spiders while walking around this week, which were cool. Also while walking back home one night a giant millipede ran out in front of Elder Jensen and into the road. I got my camera out to take a picture, but we had to wait since it was in the road and a car was coming. As soon as the car passed, we started towards it to take the picture only to see that it had been crushed by the car, which was sad but really funny too haha.

I made a shrine of my homeland out of things I found on the street, which made Elder Jensen feel patriotic. Also E Souza took my camera and took some pictures of us while we were studying, which I figured was also part of the missionary experience, and back home I was always curious about what all aspects of missionary life were like, so I'm including some of those in here too.

Also included a picture of me being the basic missionary, but I'm not even sorry. Also included some pictures of some pretty brush and grass, since it's pretty much the only thing in my area that is like that, and I knew my mom would appreciate it.

There are still some pretty big mud puddles hanging around from when it rained last week, so somehow we have been really dusty and muddy at the same time. Trying to cross some of the puddles has resulted in some incredible bravery and self confidence followed by soggy shoes and laughing companions. Also found a super knock-off brand of Gatorade and Powerade called "Sporade" which I thought was hilarious so I had to buy it of course.

Something else different about the Mexican culture is that they aren't afraid to call people fat or skinny or short, or anything else of the such that would normally be taboo in English/America. People yell out "hey fatty" to call their kids or just tell people "wow you're really short" in conversation which is funny.

Through some experiences this week, I've realized that this church really is for the strengthening of it's members, and for trying to help its members become happier, more helpful and aware of others, and more christlike in nature. 

Although hard some days, it's nice to be out here just trying to be a good person and to help people that might benefit from hearing the messages of Christ's gospel. I'm having some good and fun experiences, and learning some lessons that I'll never forget. Have also learned though that to be happy in this life and grow to the point where you can learn some great life lessons, you do have to do hard and uncomfortable things that we won't want to do, but it's all worth it in the end.

Love you guys!

-Elder Peters