Saturday, August 9, 2014

Letter 37

It has been raining a lot lately here in Juarez. It usually rains for about an hour in the mornings or mid afternoon, and then the sun comes up and rains havoc over the people in Juarez. It gets so ridiculously hot and humid after it rains. And then come the floods. The streets here have a horrible irrigation system (worse than Mexico City), and a little rain costs half the city to flood.
Here in Juarez, there is also a surprising amount of people who know people who have either died, or almost died getting struck by lightning. I always thought that being struck by lightning was a "one in a million" deal, but I guess not
This week was week 1 of a new cycle. A fresh new batch of missionaries arrived on Monday, On Tuesday, Elder Webster and I coordinated the changes for the whole mission. I broke my personal record for finishing the changes this cycle. We were able to move everyone around, and get them to their new area by 2:35 pm. The previous change we finished at 4:12 pm, and the one before that we finished at 6:30 pm. We finally got the hang of changes now, and I don't stress out too bad anymore.
 
Well, after changes, it was back to the daily grind for Elder Webster and I...almost. On Thursday and Friday we had our monthly "Mission Leadership Council" with President and all the other Zone leaders in the mission. To kick off Thursday's meeting, we had a mini work-out boot camp with all of the zone leaders and lead sister training leaders. Hermano Reyes (President's 1st councilor) taught us the correct way to work out in the mornings. Every morning we are supposed to work out for 30 minutes as soon as we wake up, and President wanted to see who really worked out in the mornings. Well, after an intense 30 min. session, we all realized that the exercises we all do in the mornings isn't even close to what we're supposed to be doing! The next day we all woke up crazy sore.
On Friday we had our regular meeting with President Derbez, and he announced a few changes we are going to apply to the mission. Most of it is pretty technical, and won't really effect everyone, so i will omit the details.
 
This brings us to today. Today we are having a baptism (in an hour actually). Jasmine and Anita Alanis are getting baptised this week. Jasmine and Anita were found by the sister missionaries here in Pradera and they have been coming to church regularly and have loved it. The sisters did most of the teaching (they live a couple blocks from their house), but Elder Webster and I helped teach them a bit as well. Jasmine is 20 years old and her sister, Anita is 11. Jasmine is cultivating a strong testimony in the Church, and has been a great influence for the rest of her family to start hearing about the Gospel. Elder Robbins and I will be baptising them.
 
Well, that about wraps up the week (and my time). I love you all!
Elder Velazquez

quick pic from Elder Velazquez
 

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