May 19: Your Orientation

Hi! I feel like I´ve been getting questions like, What is my house like, What is my companion like, What is the food like, and lots of questions about my favorite: Mail. So today is an orientation for yáll, and sorry it´s late in coming!

1.       I´m in a county called Tlaqupaque, a neighborhood called Parques de Santa Cruz, a street called Avenida San Blas. I have no idea if google maps works, but that would be cool haha.

2.       The house. We live in a duplex. Free standing houses here basically do not exist. I think I´ve seen two or three and they´re super old (like colonial). Here´s some pictures:

The shower is behind the door.

Not all the houses and living situations are the same within the mission, mine´s super nice right now! One of the sisters who got here before me still doesn´t have a bed, and one of the sisters´ houses (we had splits so I got to see it) has dirty water. But you don´t drink the water, you buy it in those 5 gallon jugs. We´ve met many neighbors this way because they see us coming back from the shop carrying the giant thing and want to loan us their little cart/wagon to pull the jug.

3.       The food: You can see our tiny fridge (which has a freezer inside), which is more than big enough for the two of us! We only prepare breakfast, we eat around 3 with one of the members, and then we have a snack for dinner (like a big chunk of homemade bread that costs 4 pesos- $0.33). There´s food for sale everywhere you look for prices like that, so yeah… It´s a good thing I run every day. There´s fresh fruit for cheap everywhere too, we just wash it in bleach water and it´s mostly fine. I miss pizza but overall the food here is a dream come true.

4.       My companion: Is from Colombia, loves soccer and with long hair (everytime we see someone with long hair- and there are a lot more people here with really long hair than in the U.S. – she stops what she is saying or interrupts me if I am talking to say, ¨Look at her hair!!¨ Haha), has 10 months in the mission, is a convert, and is obsessed with Mexican food. They don´t have tortillas or chiles in Colombia! When I talk to her I feel like I know more Mexican stuff than she does, even though I just got here.

5.       The mission is organized like this:

My companion and I work in an Area.

There are two Areas in our ward—so, there are 4 missionaries in our ward.

There are several Areas in a District.

There are several Districts in a Zone.

There are several Zones in a Mission.

A Mission is a really big area. Haha. (¨Big¨ in the case of my Mission means that it is the whole state of Michoacan and part of the state of Jalisco.)

6.       Mail.  <3

Mail works like this: It gets delivered to the mission offices, where it waits until there is a zone conference (monthly), when the elders who works in the mission offices deliver everything (mail, supplies, visa stuff, etc) to the zone leaders. The zone leaders bring it to the meeting and give it to me. I don´t have a post office anywhere in my area, so when I send letters I give money to a missionary who has a post office in their area and ask them to send it for me.

7.       My schedule:

6:30 am Get up

6:45-7:15 Run

7:15-8:00 Shower, get ready, eat breakfast

8:00 Personal study

Study how to explain what we´re going to teach today, and how to help those we´re teaching

9:00 Companion study

Talk about the needs of those we´re teaching and how to help

10:00 Training

This is time to help me learn teaching skills or other things that are important

11:00 Spanish

12:00-9:00 Teaching appointments, with one hour for lunch

9:00-9:30 Plan for tomorrow

9:30-10:30 Get ready for bed and do some chores