Zapata

The Missionaries of Zapata

Sorry I haven't been able to talk much lately. I've been too busy IN TEXAS!!

We left the Mexico City MTC at 5:30 in the morning and got to the McAllen mission home at about 3 pm. After sleeping over at the Zone Leader's house and several presentations and safety briefings, I was assigned an area and a trainer. My trainer is Elder Anderson. He's very good at basically everything, fluent in both Spanish and Tex-Mex. He was a District Leader and a Zone Leader for several transfers, and he has twelve weeks left on his mission. I will likely be his last companion. He helps me alot, and I think we will get along great.

I was assigned to the City of Zapata, to work in the North area. Zapata is a pretty small town of one main street, and about 50/50 between suburban houses and trailer parks. We have a car that we share with the South area, it's a big area but we don't bike too much. It's also split 50/50 with English and Spanish speakers. A few of our investigators only speak Spanish, which is when a fluent trainer comes in handy. We have a small building which serves out Branch. This building used to be a funeral home, and the viewing area is not our chapel. I love it. Branches hold a special place in my heart. There isn't a baptismal font though, so we have to go down to Falcon Lake! This is super special, we are the only area in the whole mission that does laketisms. We are part of the Laredo District, and it's called a District because it isn't big enough to be a Stake yet. In the entire United States there are only two Districts, and I was assigned to work in one of them. Our goal right now is to make Laredo a Stake, making a total of five Stakes in the mission. This would be enough for a Temple. Many members down here cannot cross the northers checkpoint to go to the San Antonio Temple because they don't have papers. So that's our goal right now.

Falcon Lake, our baptismal font.

Most houses down here have fences and dogs. So many dogs. Zapata has a dog problem. There are packs of feral dogs that will chase us as we bike through. People just kind of adopt these dogs when they come around. we can usually out-bike the little chihuahuas but the pitbulls and dobermans we usually have to stop and slowly pass them as they bark at us. I'm sure I'll have lots of dog stories. My most intense one so far was watching three dogs tear apart a little kitten. I'm slowly starting to not like dogs anymore.

The Spanish down here is weird. People will switch between English and Spanish almost every sentence. If the Tex-Mex is super strong, they will switch languages between words. "Oh si, I went a la tienda y got frijoles y eggs hacer desayuno el la morning" Man. One Mexican missionary told me his Spanish has degraded since being here. It's still super fun to try and figure out what the heck they are saying. It's like a puzzle.

I better get going. I cannot write even a hundredth part of the things that have happened so far, but I will write more in the future. Plus like 13 of you wrote me and I only have an hour. 

Love you all, 

Elder Gray

Everything Gets Injured

Hello everyone!

The MTC this morning. It´s a sweater day

This past week was excellent, and I expect my final week in the MTC to surpass the last in excellence. We´ve been receiving classes and packets about leaving and our flight to our missions. I received another calling, this time as a travel leader. This means I am in charge of about 15 people, all of whom are leaving the MTC to the airport. We are all going to the Houston airport and from there we split off. 10 people in our group are going to McAllen with me, so most of us will be sticking together.

Most of the past couple of days has been getting ready to leave such as, weighing our luggage and attending classes. I´m super ready to go.  I´ve learned a lot and I´ve had a lot of fun but I'm excited for some real work. Apparently, Mission Presidents select trainers for new missionaries a week or two before they arrive, meaning I´ve already been assigned a companion.

Last week an entire Stake came to the MTC and volunteered to be taught by missionaries in training. They had too many people so they pulled us out and my companion and I got to teach some teenagers. The last pair we taught were 16 and 17. They were members, but they told us they had not read the entire Book of Mormon nor prayed to know if it was true. We taught them about reading and revelation, and they told us they would read it more and pray to know if it was true. It went pretty well for being entirely in Spanish.

Photogenic Companions 

As the title suggests, I kinda got hurt this week. I wasn't even doing anything strenuous besides exercise. I hurt my lower back, which pain radiated down my leg. I also hurt both my knees, my calf, the arch of my foot and my wrist. I was walking like a zombie on Monday. I was fine after a blessing but it was still super strange. They wouldn't have sent me out into the field with a back injury like that.

My next blog post will be from Texas. See you next week! 

Elder Gray  

Everyone Gets Sick

The view outside my dorm on Day of the Dead

An eventful Week 5! So much happens every week and I can barely remember it all, so I've begun to write a rough draft of my blog posts a few days prior. I hope it helps. This week began with a lot of rain on Halloween, which was about the extent of our celebrating. We didn't do anything for Halloween or Day of the Dead, but the people outside the walls were partying hard for about three days straight. We could hear the music coming from outside the wall, so we made a gathering and had a mini dance party.

On Day of the Dead, I woke up with a sore throat, which turned into a fever and a pounding headache. People told me I looked delirious. I went to the doctors the next day and they told me I had a sinus infection which spread to my throat. I got some Mexican antibiotics and I feel a lot better. Most everyone is my district has been sick at some point, especially this past week. Some days we have had a third of the district at the doctors. Two people went to the hospital for chronic injuries, but they survived.

Last Sunday I was released as a District Leader and my companion and I were made Zone Leaders. We are now serve all of Zone 13 and are directly over the District Leaders of four Zones. I prefer being a Zone leader honestly,  District Leaders are in charge of more of the daily affairs, whereas we handle bigger things on a weekly scale. We assign priesthood lessons, run sacrament and Zone meetings and provide moral support from our shining examples. We had two new districts come in on Tuesday, and we had the opportunity to introduce ourselves and answer their questions.

My flatmate bought a Uke. I like the Uke. 

The devotional this Tuesday was a broadcast featuring Elder Russel M. Nelson, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He spoke about when they were trying to figure out the logistics of lowering the age requirements for missionaries. They knew the amount would increase, but they didn't know how much and couldn't even calculate a number. They weren't sure how they would afford it. When the plan was presented, it was approved despite the unknowns in order to give more youth the opportunity to serve, and apparently the finances worked out. 

Spanish is awesome. We have learned eight different tenses so far. I've been able to keep up with the rapid pace of learning, and I feel lucky to remember most of what is being taught. I was flipping through my Spanish scriptures in Matthew and I realized I could understand it. I may not know what every word means but I understood it all, and I read the Sermon on the Mount in Spanish. It felt like I had finally accomplished something in terms of language. 

Until next P-Day. Love you all,

Elder Gray

More Nutella

It´s pretty cold here in Mexico, probably about 50°-60°. All of the native Mexican missionaries are bundled up in giant winter coats and the Utahns just roll with a T-shirt. I enjoy the cold, overcast weather because I don´t get sunburned when i walk outside. I have SPF 110 just in case.

The locals are getting ready for Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. They are popping off fireworks almost hourly, and when we went to the temple last Friday there were large crowds gathered doing festival stuff. I´m not sure what they do, but I´m told from the night before Halloween to the 1st of November they will be partying like crazy. i wonder how well I will sleep.

Some kids got sent home trying to climb the 20 foot wall/fence to get some street tacos. 

My Spanish is coming along pretty well. We are teaching multiple 'investigators' and I´m my companion and I are doing pretty well. We spend about an hour a day in the computer lab learning Spanish, then we have two hours of Language class in the morning and evening, then an hour of Personal Language Study, and everyone speaks Spanish the whole time. There is a lot of opportunities to learn here. My favorite way is talking to the Latino Missionaries, they are always super friendly and enjoy talking to us. 

Our last Devotional was from an Area 70 named Elder Helaman Mentaje, he spoke entirely in Spanish but he also had a translator with him. I could actually understand the majority of what he said. He gave three pieces of advice for missionaries, and a story to go with each one: 

1. Never doubt your impressions.

2. Listen to your companion.

3. Have patience.

Tune in next week to see if we celebrated Halloween. I still have no idea.

Elder Gray