First off, Lucy and Wendy were baptized on Saturday! We were pretty excited for them. It was a really neat experience and they were pretty excited. I had the opportunity to baptize the daughter, Wendy. Me and her are pretty good friends. They kind of scared us a little bit because they didn't show up to sacrament meeting until right before the sacrament. We didn't really know what we would have done if they never showed up. But they were confirmed and are officially members of the Church.

We have been working with an investigator named Hector. He is 13 and he is awesome. He is just kind of a quiet guy but he reads everything and he just gets it. After our last lesson I was about to leave a chapter from the book of mormon to ready until our next visit. Right before I told him what it was, his uncle (who is less-active) threw him under the bus and said "you know what? we both need to be better at reading. How about we ready the whole first book of Nephi before the next appointment" (which would be in one week). I thought it seemed a little crazy because we usually leave only one or two chapters at the most. However, Hector accepted it no problem. Yesterday we saw him again and asked him how his reading was going and he basically told us everything that happens in First Nephi. Needless to say I think he did his reading. We are still working on helping him come to church. His dad doesn't really like the idea of him coming to church but we are working on it.

We have also started giving English classes every tuesday and even teach english in some lessons one-on-one with investigators who can't came on tuesdays. I didn't know that so many people would be willing to learn english. I don't even know how to teach English but they like it so we keep doing it. We basically just throw some words on the whiteboard and have them write sentences with the words. It is a fun time.

I really love my new area. It is very humble and very exciting. I don't have time to tell you all the little details and stories that happen every day but there are very many. I feel so blessed to be in this area and in this mission. It is crazy to me how fast time is going, it really just needs to slow down.


--
Elder May

cathedral in coyoacán

I bought a poncho

I slept in an uncomfortable hammock 

Lucy and Wendy's baptism

the area

Elders of Hidalgo​​

Hello everybody!

Once again we have had another great week in Los Hornos. For those of you who don't know what Los Hornos means, it means "the ovens". I feel like our area is appropriately named because it is so hot here. We are up in the mountains and the sun just beats on us all day. However, every now and then we get a random rainstorm. It isn't just a few drops either, the streets basically turn into rivers and no matter what we do, we always get soaked. It is fun though.

We went on exchanges with the zone leaders the other day and that was a great experience. I went with Elder Santos. Their area is pretty big so we had to take some busses to get around. I've mentioned a little bit how crazy the buses are here, but I have basically gotten used to it by now. A lot of times people will just hop on the bus and play their guitar or something for a few minutes and try to earn some money and then later hope off. Or they might try to sell candies or something. It is pretty common. However, on this particular day a clown got on the bus. If any of you know me well enough, you might now how much I don't like clowns. They are just weird to me. But this clown came on and started telling jokes and being weird and everything and I was just dreading because I knew he was going to say something to me. I stick out like an elephant in the room wherever I go and people love to harrass us "güeros"... Anyways, this clown started talking to me and saying some jokes about the USA and then started speaking some english to me and everyone was just laughing and watching to see what I would do. I Didn't respond and just looked at him and eventually said (in spanish) "sorry I don't understand english. I am from Russia" and everyone just stopped laughing and turned around as if I had ruined the whole thing. The clown just said sorry and went on his way harrassing the rest of the people. I guess sounding like a russian comes in handy sometimes.

We had some really good lessons this week. We are working with a man named Javier. He is in his 50's and has a wife and 3 kids. There is a drug here that is really popular called monia. It is basically just fingernail polish with some weird chemicals in it. Well, Javier has been addicted to monia for about 30 years and is now going on 8 days without his monia. We had him write down on a piece of paper the reasons he wants to stop drugging. He wrote down a lot about his family. He really wants his wife and kids to respect him. He told us a few days ago that he was at a party with his friends and they all started drinking and pulling out the monia and he told us he was about to join them but he remembered his goal and is still going strong. It is really hard for him but I have no doubts that he can do it. you guys should all keep Javier in your prayers.

We were also looking through the area book and thought we would go visit some old investigators. We visited a mom named Elivia and her son, Jesus, aged 15. The mom told us that she had just quite her job on sunday so she could start going to church again and bring her family. Jesus said that he wants to be baptized so that he can go on a mission. He really wants to go to Japan, and speaks a little japanese. They are both really awesome and very faithful. They also have a pet pirrhana that is HUGE and they told me one day I could feed it a live fish to watch how it eats. I am pretty excited for that day.

I love being a missionary here. Every day is full of new experiences that are changing who I am as a person. I am learned what it is like to serve and love people as the savior served them. We are currently teaching a lady named Xochitl. She works just about all day every day so the only time we can teach here is at 7:00 am every tuesday. she lives more towards the back of our area so we have to leave at about 6:25 am to get to her house on time. She is awesome too. I wish I had more time to tell you all about the amazing people I meet here every day. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, have a great week!


--
Elder May

First things first.... Lucy got married! I honestly wasn't so sure it was going to happen. She changed her mind about 3 times just this week about wanting to get married. I was the one planning it and setting up the appointment with the Judge and everything and I didn't really know what I was doing. She seemed pretty unsure about it. I don't blame her though, I was pretty confused about the whole thing, but we got it done. I know how to plan a wedding now so the next time it will be a breeze.. I hope. We had to go out of the mission and into a completely different state of Mexico to do it. The judge we went with helps the missionaries a lot and it is a lot easier to go to him apparently. It was a pretty fun trip though. We went in the metro (subway), buses, and even moto-taxis (motorcycle taxi). When we got to the judge's office, we still had to wait about 3 hours. It was pretty long and boring. They are officially married though and should be getting baptized this week!

That was about the biggest thing that happened here this week. This area has been a little harder to find new investigators just because of how the people live up here. We really have to work with the members a lot more to find people to teach. The members here are really good though and give us referrals quite often.

Aside from all of that, it has been a little bit of a drier week here. I have  been studying charity a lot lately. As a missionary, Charity is one of the biggest things that helps you in the mission. For me it is really easy to get frustrated when people don't keep their commitments we leave them. We have heard all of the excuses and I have to hold myself back from calling them out on there excuses. Needless to say, that is why I have been studying charity lately. I found a quite by President Monson that I really liked. It said "Charity, like Faith, requires action." We teach people a lot that to have effective faith, we need to act. But it wasn't until I read that quote that I had thought about charity in that sense as well. We have to work towards charity and exercise it, just like our faith. As we give to others and really focus on showing that Christ-like love, eventually it will become part of our nature as well. In moroni 7:48 it says that we should pray with all of the energy of our heart that we might be filled with this love, because if we don't have charity, we are nothing (something like that, I don't remember the wording in english). We are all representatives of Jesus Christ. We all take his name upon us when we are baptized. If we represent Jesus Christ, I think the best way to do that is to have charity and be kind to people. Christ was the perfect example and teacher of charity. I hope and pray that each of us can be a little more loving towards one another. In my mission I have really been able to see the difference it makes in some of these peoples lives when they feel like someone cares about them. I know Charity makes a difference in each of our lives regardless of our circumstance. Have a great week!

Elder May

Making Tortillas

Making Salsa

Riding in the Mototaxi

waited 3 hours in the judges office while Lucy and gerardo got married.

outside the judges office.

streets in my area

Hello everybody, as you know I was transferred last week. My new companion is Elder Uhlig, another gringo. I like having gringo companions. My new area is in Colonia Hidalgo, and I love it here. We live in hidalgo, but really our area is up the mountain in Los Hornos. (the ovens). It is up there in the mountains a ways so we have to take a pretty steep hike every day just to even get into our area. This area is pretty poor too and it was quite a shock. Some of these people really just live behind a pile of rocks or under a blanket fort looking thing. It has been a very humbling first week here. It is pretty different than my last area but I already love it here.

There are a lot of really good investigators and met some really great people this week. We are working with an investigator named Lucy. She is trying to get married so she can get baptized and that has been a stressful time. I am basically planning the whole thing. I don't really want to get married anymore, it is a lot of work.

The members are really good here and for the first time in my mission I attended a sacrament meeting with more than 60 people. It was pretty great. There are about 200 active members and they are really great at giving us referrals. We were given two referrals last week and the both seem pretty golden and we are pretty excited about them.

I really like this area and am super excited for what this next transfer will bring. I expect to have a lot more stories for you all while I am here. Just as some background information, there are dogs literally everywhere. If you want a dog, just come to Mexico City and pick which on you want, they have all different breeds and sizes. The other day we saw a dog whose ear had somehow been torn off or something and somebody just taped it back on with skotch tape.

Have a great week!

--
Elder May

I felt like Po from kung fu panda climbing up these stairs

 the house of one of our investigators

los hornos

 Elder Uhlig and I

view of mexico city