The Pants Strike Back
Elder Souza, taking the picture of me sitting near the puddle last week, and already having ripped lots of other pants, ripped his last pair that didn't have a hole, meaning he had ripped all his pants. ALL of them. He wore dark shorts under his pants for a day or two until we found a sister in the ward who could sew them.
This week flew by. One of those weeks where I looked at my watch and realized it was 2 days later than I thought it was. I don't think I've ever thought about the passing of time more than I have on the mission. It passes super fast yet super slow at the same time. That old cliche about days feeling like weeks and weeks feeling like days really is true.
Missions bring all sorts of weird feelings, especially when we don't really have outside entertainment. I never thought I would get cravings to watch things like Thomas the Train and Veggie tails, but here we are. (Also learned that the Thomas the Train, Spongebob, and Phineas and Ferb theme songs are translated into Spanish, which is weird but I guess makes sense)
Spanish is coming along great. Sometimes I catch myself responding to things without even really thinking about it, and it's really weird. Learning a new language is really weird, especially with some words they have in both English and Spanish that don't translate and the way in which they describe things. Honestly don't even remember learning some parts of speech that I use, they kinda just entered my brain through osmosis or something.
Also have been getting more of an idea what it really means to be White, with people shouting "Hey Whitey!" to me on the street, asking me specifically for money, asking me about Trump, and telling me I can't relate to what it's like to live in Mexico with all our priviledges we have in the states. It has really stood out to me more this week for some reason, especially with how in the states we don't really think about it at all.
Turns out I make sounds in my sleep. Like little squeaks and sighs. Elder Souza says he has a hard time not laughing in the middle of the night. Guess my future wife has that to look forward to.
Had an interesting experience this week where we got stopped by a drunk. It happens pretty often, and it kind of gets annoying since it's just kind of a waste of time and sometimes it can get into a sticky situation, but this time, Elder Souza was really calm and loving with him (like normal), and pulled him aside and accepted to say a prayer for this guy after he asked for one from us. He said a prayer for him right there on the street, and after the prayer, the man looked up at us with tears in his eyes and his voice breaking, thanking us for helping him and saying "God bless you guys" over and over again. It really touched me, and helped me realize that that was exactly what Jesus would do, and the very essence of being a disciple of Christ. Granted, Elder Souza is far from the perfect example, but that little experience really resounded with me and may have changed me forever. Christ didn't deny people because they were sinners or because they smelled like alcohol or had made bad life choices that make us uncomfortable. He loved and served them.
Had a really cool Christmas party with our ward this week! We asked our new ward mission leader to ask about it in ward council, and the next Sunday they announced it in church, and it was a huge success! We had a family whose dad recently passed away showed up, even though we forgot we even invited them, and a young girl who we invited show up with her cousin and friend even though her mom couldn't come. I went up and asked some members in our ward if they could try and make them feel welcome, and when I turned around to point them out, I saw that they were already being fellowshipped and being talked to by other members of our ward! That was a great feeling, even though the entire party I was exhausted from running around and trying to make sure our investigators had a great experience and communicating with members, but it was great and all worth it. They had posole and Mexican Christmas music and pinatas and a Santa Claus, with a fun dance thing afterwards called "Soy Una Serpiente" which means "I'm a Snake." The head of the snake walked around the gym and pointed people out, and whoever he pointed out had to crawl under his legs and join the train, and we eventually got up to about 30ish people in the snake train. (Definitely doing that for the next Peters family reunion)
Attaching some fun pics of more cool sunsets and just some of the streets we walk along, plus some of the Mexican treats they handed out in the candy bags to the kids (and missionaries) at the Christmas party. Also we've been killing a lot of cockroaches. Thankfully they're only outside our house, but they're still getting the chancla. Also went on divisions this week and tried to take a cool picture of Christmas lights shining in a mud puddle when I was on divisions with Elder Jaimes.
Love you guys! If you have time, watch this Christmas video that recently got put out that's just a story about Christ's birth that they showed at the ward Christmas party. It really stood out to me, and helped me realize and remember the importance and power of Christ, along with his humble beginnings. May or may not have made my eyes sweat a little.
Feliz (casi) Navidad y'all
-Elder Peters
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