Thursday, June 27, 2013



Well, as I said last week for Pday, our zone climbed a mountain called Malinche. Apparently its over 14,000 feet high (I just looked at it, it is 40 shorter than Mt. Whitney)! It was a pretty tough hike... the trail pretty much just went straight up the mountain with no turns or curves. Pictures 163 shows that pretty well. There were a good amount of elders in the zone that never made it to the top, one of these was my very own companion and trainer, Elder Alejandre. I really wanted a picture with him at the top of a mountain.

La obra misional: right now, the family of Maricruz has a baptismal date, the family of Guadelupe has accepted baptism but not a specific date (yet), and one guy that has a baptismal date, but we can never find him (so irritating!).

in the maricruz family, the grandma, the daughter, and the son´s girlfriend have a baptismal date. but the daughter and the son need to get married, however the grandmother is just about ready for baptism. they all attended  church yesterday!

In the family of guadelupe, there is the mom, guadelupe, and her three sons. Her three sons have been attending church but she cant because she works on sundays, but she is trying to switch her schedule.

Ángel is an interesting situation; when we visited a family in the ward, one of the daughters had her boyfriend Ángel was over at the time. He has been attending seminary with the daughter, and has been reading the Book of Mormon already. So we taught the Restoration, invited him to baptism and he accepted, and we havent seen him since. I dont know why but the daughter isnt helping us find him. its a little bit irritating.

anyways, Spanish is difficult. I am really glad that I studied spanish as much as i did before the mission! But it is coming along well. I dont have much trouble teaching and understanding the gospel in Spanish, but as soon as the subject turns away from the missionary lessons, I cant really understand much. But I am making progress! I do feel like I speak significantly better than I did 4 weeks ago! (by the way Dad: si usted quiere poner acentos, cambie el idioma del teclado a español).

right now we are starting to get into the rainy season. It is starting to rain almost everyday. for two days, we didnt see the sun, but now it is hot again (hot to me is 80 degrees)

Love you all so much! thank for the letters! I am glad that you are doing well! I am super happy for you kannon, and your new job at the dog farm (what is that exactly?). 

I will see you in 22 months!

Love 
Elder Davis

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Elder Shane Davis' Week 3

This week has been pretty awesome! the sad thing is, is that I don't have time to tell about it. Our zone peaked the mountain Malinche today (all but a few people including my companion)! It was pretty awesome but we just got back and I only have a few minutes to write! all I have time to say is that we have two families with baptismal dates and one teenager with a baptismal date!

Dad: Feliz dia de padres. Le escribiré una letra mejor la próxima semana cuando tengo más tiempo. I love you tons!

Braden: Happy belated Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you are a stud!

I love you all so much! Ill send you more details and pictures next week!



Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Week 2 in Puebla

Family,

On wednesday, I went on splits because Elder Alejandre is the District Leader and he has to do that every once in a while. I went with Elder Tomayo, who is from Tijuana. His area is in the Centro de Mercado, where are the people, stores, and wierd buildings are. 

The other day, we counted and we have 15 investigators right now. I can`t name every one of them yet, but we have 3 families: Maricruz familia, Rio Mendez familia, and Guadalupe`s family (I forget the last name).  The Maricruz familia  consists of grandma, grandpa, daughter (who is around 30) and 2nd daughter + novio and their 2 year old son. The Maricruz familia attended sacrament meeting yesterday! We found the Rio Mendez and Guadelupe familias last week.

I think that I am starting to understand un poquito more Spanish! Slowly but surely, Ill eventually be able to understand and speak Spanish, but there is a bit of a communication barrier between me and my companion.

The weather right now isnt too bad. It gets a little hot in the afternoons but it usually cools down by 5 or 6. And it has been raining every other afternoon for about 10 minutes, then it stops. I think that it will start raining more as  we get further into the rainy season.

For both Pdays, we played soccer for a while at the church. Last week we played with the entire district (8 Elders) and then, we ate at a pretty delicious restaurant; the food here is pretty cheap. if it was expensive, then nobody would be able to afford it.

Kannon: I heard that you got a job at Blondies! Say hi to the workers there for me!

Well, this has been a pretty awesome week! Spanish is hard, but its coming along. I love you all so much! Thank you everyone for the emails! I am just about out of time, so ill talk to you next week!

Love,
Elder Davis

Monday, June 3, 2013

First Week in North Puebla

Well, i´ll start off by saying that life is super different here.
 
If you want to look it up on Google, the city that I am in is called Chiautempan, Mexico, about an hour or so north of Puebla (it is close to the city Tlaxcala de Xicohtencatl, good luck pronouncing that).
 
On Monday, a group of about 6 of us all going to Puebla North left the MTC at about 5 in the morning, flew to Texas, waited for about 6 hours in the Dallas Airport until at 6:00, the flight to Puebla left. In the airport, we talked to a few people, met a black guy named Brigham Young, and waited. On the way to Puebla, there were only about 15 people on the relatively small plane. We talked to the lady that gives water and stuff (I forgot the name of that job) a little about the gospel and we gave her a book of mormon (she seemed excited).
 
Monday night, we stayed in the Mission Home (where the mission president lives). That house is super nice! It was in the middle of one of the only rich neighborhoods in the area. President Christenson is pretty awesome; I believe that he emailed you guys a photo.
 
The next day, the president gave us a little orientation (all in English), then he drove all of us newbies to a chapel across town for a mission conference. On the way there, we got to see what Mexico was like outside of the rich neighborhood, and it is very poor place! The city is dirty and unorganized, everybody drives very aggressively, and there are couples everywhere publicly displaying affection.
 
When we arrived at the church, we received our trainers and the areas that we are going to. My trainer/companion is Elder Alejandre. He is from Monterrey, Mexico and speaks no English. Elder Alejandre is pretty awesome! I am grateful to have him as a trainer!
 
After the mission conference, we took the bus to our house. According to American standards, our house is pretty crappy, but apparently, it is nicer than many of the houses that I have yet to live in. All the houses in Mexico (or at least my area) are made almost completely of concrete. Concrete floors, concrete walls, concrete ceilings, concrete stairs etc. Also, all of the houses are connected by sharing a wall. All the houses here are super weird; they are painted weird, bright colors (if they are painted at all), they are all small, dirty, and mistreated.
 
Right now, we have about 5 or 6 investigators. But our mission president said that this mission will be just as much of a reactivation mission as a baptising mission. He also said that about 90% of converts in Mexico go inactive! There are so many less-actives here, its sad! President Christenson also said that we arent going to be knocking on doors much or doing many street contacts because he wants us to focus more on membership referrals.
 
The people here are surpisingly friendly and humble. The members of the ward are all super awesome!
 
The other day, a member fed us Molé de Panza... Panza means pig stomach. So basically, they cut up pig stomach, cook it, and then put it in a soup. it didn't taste very bad, but the texture was super weird! It was rubbery, chewy, soft, there was a layer of fat on it, and some of the pieces burst liquid when I bit into it, but nevertheless, I finished the whole bowl!
 
I love it here, though I cant understand half of what the people are saying! Missionary work is awesome! I am excited for the day that I can understand people, because my Spanish no es bueno.
 
I love and miss you all so much! 
 
Love,
Elder Davis
 
PS: next week i will send some pictures of my house, my hour is up and it is taking forever to loa photos on thi computer


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Sunday, June 2, 2013

Our Phone Call from Shane from the Airport

We got to talk to Shane on the phone before he flew off to Mexico. It was a great conversation. Shane was so excited to get going. He loved the MTC, but he is ready to get to Mexico and get going and start using his Spanish. We haven't heard from Shane since he has been in Mexico; but, we did get a letter from his Mission President and his wife.

The letter said that we raised a fine son! They assured us that he is in good hands and that he was assigned to his companion. They also mentioned the Puebla is perhaps the safest area in the country of Mexico. They said the people are friendly and helpful. The wards and stakes are strong and very active.

Shane gets an hour a week to read and respond to emails. Usually using dearelder.com is the best way..... but, we have a little kink in that right now. We noticed that there isn't a North Puebla drop down menu on dear elder, only a South Puebla. I am looking into this to figure out what to do about that. Meanwhile. If you want to write Shane, his email is shane.davis@myldsmail.net.

Because he doesn't get much time on the internet, please keep emails very short. If you want to write more his actual address would be better:

Elder Shane Davis
Oficina Mision Mexico Puebla Norte
Av. 25 Sur#907
col. La Paz
Puebla, Puebla, C.P. 72160

Shane sends his love to everyone!!!!