Texas

Hey ya'll,

It got fairly cold recently! All the way down to the 40's. This may be nothing for those in the mountains and snow, but for Texas the world is about to end. More on that later. 

Last week we helped out our investigator clean out his ranch house and prep it for a Parade of Homes. It was really fun, and our whole Zone even came down and helped out as a service project. He also got us breakfast which is also a huge plus. Sunday went pretty normally, after Church we go around to people who aren't able to come to Church and give them the Sacrament and sing them a hymn. This coming weekend we have interviews with the President, which should be exciting. 

Not not a lot has happened so I thought I would talk a little about Texas.

Falcon Lake, Zapata

I really love Texas. I felt at home the moment I arrived. The people are always friendly and willing to talk, which is both a pro and a con. It's good because they usually will talk to us as missionaries instead of slam the door, but they are too nice to say they aren't interested and will lead us on. They are very sharing of what they have, especially food. Many times as we're talking they will give us a plate of carne asada to go or offer a drink. One thing I've noticed is they are highly superstitious of the weather. If it's raining they won't go to Church because they believe if they get wet, they will get sick. And if it's cold, they won't go to Church, because it's bad to breath cold air. It's pretty funny, but I'm beginning to think they just don't want to come to Church. Love them to death though.

Tomales are super common, and are a Christmas tradition for many families down here. I'm lucky I love them, because we have them weekly. Another thing I was introduced to was Abuelita's Hot Chocolate. It's like a circular block of chocolate that you melt in hot milk with some cinnamon and it makes a crazy good cup of chocolate. I was also introduced to menudo. Menudo is a soup, and it's very common down here. It's like a southwestern chili bean soup, which is good, but then they went and added pig intestines to it. These little chunks of pig intestines are chewy and flavorless and I try not to look at it. Many people trying it for the first time will scare themselves beforehand, but I kinda liked it once I stopped thinking about it.  

I hope you learned something, and enjoyed my bomb sunset pic I took. Have a blessed December ya'll.

Love,

Elder Gray

December

Zapata missionaries waiting for the Christmas parade

Happy December!

Almost as soon as December hit, it began to be cloudy, dark and rainy. I love this weather because I don't get sunburned, but all the native Texans really, really hate the cold. Now it's actually pretty cold and I don't have a jacket. I think I might get one at Burlington today.

We've been feeling the Christmas spirit lately. We make hot chocolate every day, I wear my Santa hat almost everywhere, and we put on Christmas music in the house when we are not studying. Taylor Swift is a favorite. We also had a Christmas devotional yesterday, broadcasted from Salt Lake. It was pretty nice, the choir sang some Christmas songs and they gave talks on the birth of Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas. 

The Crew and our gear

So this member in the area went on a trip, and we took care of his animals while he was gone. As a thank you, he got us all slingshots. I've never really used a slingshot before but I think I'm in love. I've been shooting at stuff like cacti, telephone poles and signs as we drive by. We have bottle shooting competitions and personal bets. I'm basically a sniper with this thing. It's also very useful for all the stray dogs. I've never really hit one directly, but if you hit a stop sign it makes a loud noise and they scatter.  

Can't wait for Christmas and my one Skype call! I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Gray

Dia de Gracias

Wow! It's almost December! I feel like I've been on a mission for years but I also feel like I got here yesterday. It's exhausting so it feels like a long time but so repetitive that the mind just blurs it into one long day. I'm having a blast though, I really enjoy the challenge of learning a new language and getting over my fear of talking to people. After this last week I feel like I can understand most of what people are saying and I'm slowly talking more in lessons and when we knock doors. Learning is cool.

The Field is White and Ready to Harvest

We had quite a few new investigators this week. A lot of families. They are all really good people and I enjoy watching them grow and learn. Not one of them showed up to church though. We had very few people at church yesterday, but I'm hoping it was because of Thanksgiving weekend. 

Speaking of which, was Thanksgiving was great. We spent most of the day eating. We had three different Thanksgiving meals, and we ended that day with 6 plates of leftover. I checked myself at the end of the day and I weighed more at that time than any other point in my entire life. It was awesome. Basically this whole week I've been eating leftovers, and I'm a little tired of stuffing and turkey, but at least I'm not starving. People love to feed us. I'm told nearly every other area has way more meal appointments, and in some areas we eat once or twice a day with members. I'm worried I'm going to gain weight since I lack self-control.

A week later and half my foot is still purple

I also sprained my ankle my first P-day. We were playing soccer but I didn't even do anything cool to injure it, I was just walking and rolled my ankle.I tell people I did it while scoring two goals at once. Because of my injury, we had to take the car every day this week and a week later it's still messed up. I think we are going to start biking again though since we are using too many miles on the car. I enjoyed not getting chased by dogs this week but nothing lasts forever. 

Again, I cannot write even a hundredth part of the things that have happened, but these are the big things.

I love you all, 

Elder Gray

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