Things are still going great and I am loving my time in Mexico! Its good to hear about the family and all that you all are up to. Sounds like I have neglected to tell you about my daily life and my survival status here in Tepatitlán. First off I am alive and am doing well. Its still strange living in a place that doesn't speak my language but I'm starting to get used to it. My days are busy and mostly consist of walking and sweating. Its awesome!
We get up at 6:30 and exercise (sit ups, push ups, and a home-made curling bar made up of concrete on both sides of a metal bar), 7-8 is getting ready for the day (showering, desayuno, shaving, etc.), 8-9 is personal study (Love this hour, I study in the scriptures, and Its in English!), 9-11 is companionship study for the first 12 weeks its training out of a book... lets just say its not my favorite thing to do. 11-12 is language study where we either watch an LDS movie in Spanish or I study out of my Spanish books. 12-9 is missionary time; mostly it just consists of walking all around town talking to in active members, members, and recent converts. At 2 we have lunch with members. 9-930 is planning time for the
next day and we usually eat dinner at this time. We then get ready for bed and are usually in bed no later than 10:15 (but usually we are in bed earlier). Elder Tucker and I usually talk at night for like a half an hour about anything that comes to our mind. Sometimes we talk about scary stories, members and people we are working with, sometimes girls at home, things we used to do, our favorite cartoons, favorite bands, and other weird things come to our minds.
Every 2 weeks we get 800 pesos, on the 30th and on the 15th. We get reimbursed for our bus tickets and for the gas. This past week I feel that I have spent more money that I usually would because we had to go get cleaning supplies. The mission money can go to food, computer time, cleaning supplies, and buses. Primarily it goes to food and buses. We are in charge of breakfast which usually consists of cereal, I bought some pancake mix that we still need to go get eggs for. Elder Tucker hates huevos so he's just never really bought them. Strange verdad? He doesn't like eggs at all. Hopefully we can go get some today. Everyday we eat lunch at a members house. We usually eat with the same member every other week. The food is good here, usually consists of beans, tortillas, and rice. We get lucky when there is meat. We actually had macaroni and cheese this week and it was delicious. One thing that's way
different about here is that they put chiles and chile sauce on everything. Doesn't matter what were eating there is always chile sauce available. I love it.
All of the members try and tease me by offering me chiles and hot sauce, but I always surprise them by always eating the most picoso sauces and chiles they have and eating a lot of it. They think it's so strange that a gringo likes chiles and hot sauce as much as I do. They always say that usually the gringo missionaries never eat the picante food and when they do they never like it. They are in awe that I can eat equally spicy and sometimes more spicy things as they can. I love it, its so funny watching their faces as I eat chile after chile and drowning my food with the spiciest sauce they have :). Dinner is at 9 o' clock and Elder Tucker and I usually eat out. One thing that makes me sad is that we can't go to taco stands... their not sanitary and that's how missionaries get sick. There is a hamburger place on the corner of our street that has really really good burgers and fries. An Hombre and his Esposa run it out of their garage and its so good! We also order pizza every Thursday from dominoes. A large pizza is 89 pesos (about $6.70) on Thursday while on the other days of the week the large pizzas are like 140 pesos ($10.54). Even with the pizza they make sure that there are hot sauce packets that come along with them.
It's good. There are a lot of different places that deliver here. You've got dominoes (which is the only pizza place from home here), subway delivers, there are plenty of taco places that deliver, and all of them deliver on little scooters. It's awesome, it's like out of a movie! One of the best things about delivery here is that you are not expected to tip. If we aren't that hungry we usually just eat a little bit of cereal before we go to bed. But usually we are starving by 9 because we had la comida at 2. Oh yeah that's another strange thing about here, lunch is called la comida or "the food". The food is great here but let's just say sometimes my stomach is struggling getting used to it. I just take some pills and its all good.
We do Laundry every P-Day. All we do is take it down to a landromat and they wash and dry it for us and then we pick up our laundry the next day, for about a hundred pesos (about $7.50). Computer time is on P-days as well. There are places all over the city were people go and pay to use computers. The computers are nice. The only thing that I don't like about them is that the key boards are Spanish!
It's difficult to type letters in English and I don't know Spanish well enough yet to type in Spanish. The worst part is that the back space is tiny so I keep hitting the key right next to it that makes me go back to the start of the sentence. It costs about 10 pesos an hour to use the computer.
The humidity is a little different to get used to. But honestly it isn't as hot as I thought it would be. There usually is a nice breeze and clouds. It does get hot because we walk around so much and people's houses are hot but really I expected to be drowning in sweat and being miserable all of the time, so its really not that bad here in Tepatitlán. Apparently may is the hottest month here and I passed it so that's pretty sweet too. It also rains here almost every day. It doesn't rain nonstop like I thought it might during their rainy season but it rains for about a half an hour each day super super super hard. Its so cool. The streets are like flooded and its legit like a fast river flowing down the street. Tepa is like a huge hill anyways so when it rains the streets are legit like a fast river. The streets are tiny as well so it gets kind of crazy with the traffic and everything. But the people here are just used to it, back at home people would be freaking out with how much water and how dangerous it would be to be out on the road. Not here though, it's just an everyday thing!
Elder Tucker is awesome! We get along so great and we just joke and laugh all the time! He's a way cool guy and really helps me out with everything without making me feel dumb or inferior to him. He's way
cool. We haven't fought at all and he's not a big slob, he's not annoying, and he's not too weird. I love hearing about his stories through his mission. He's an awesome guy and I am sure I'll be seeing him again after his mission. Its way cool that he lives like 15 minutes away from me. Speaking of which, his Mom wants to swing by and talk to you and mom about your sons. I gave him our home phone number so you should be expecting a call within this next week. I've also decided Xochitl needs to marry him. His full name is Kevin David Tucker, he graduated in 2009 and he is 22. There might be a possibility that Susanna knows him but she probably would've been a freshmen when he was a senior. Elder Tucker is also very excited to have Fourth of July with an American... I don't know how much celebrating we'll actually be doing but I guess it'll be pretty spectacular.
The Spanish is slowly coming, but still coming. Its hard when I want to participate in lessons but I can't communicate fully what I want to say... but it will come. This week a couple just started talking to me on the bus about me being a missionary and such, Elder Tucker had to sit somewhere else so it was
just me talking to them. They were really nice and really were good people. They belonged to a church called the "Lights around the world" or something like that. It was kind of cool having a conversation with people without the help of Elder Tucker (even though they did do most of the talking). The people are pretty nice here, people say good morning, good afternoon, and goodnight all the time. We get called gringos and some other racial slurs on a daily basis but I just smile and wave at them and they smile and wave back. Its fun! The members don't have much but they always give us the best food they have and
they have us use the nicest plates and silverware out of anyone. It's really sweet and nice of them.
Loving it here, were going to start the rest of our P-Day soon, which will consist of haircuts, bowling (wahoo!), and were going to go see a really creepy tree that has some historical meaning that I'll tell you about more next week!
Hasta en 23 meses!
Elder Summers
We get up at 6:30 and exercise (sit ups, push ups, and a home-made curling bar made up of concrete on both sides of a metal bar), 7-8 is getting ready for the day (showering, desayuno, shaving, etc.), 8-9 is personal study (Love this hour, I study in the scriptures, and Its in English!), 9-11 is companionship study for the first 12 weeks its training out of a book... lets just say its not my favorite thing to do. 11-12 is language study where we either watch an LDS movie in Spanish or I study out of my Spanish books. 12-9 is missionary time; mostly it just consists of walking all around town talking to in active members, members, and recent converts. At 2 we have lunch with members. 9-930 is planning time for the
next day and we usually eat dinner at this time. We then get ready for bed and are usually in bed no later than 10:15 (but usually we are in bed earlier). Elder Tucker and I usually talk at night for like a half an hour about anything that comes to our mind. Sometimes we talk about scary stories, members and people we are working with, sometimes girls at home, things we used to do, our favorite cartoons, favorite bands, and other weird things come to our minds.
Every 2 weeks we get 800 pesos, on the 30th and on the 15th. We get reimbursed for our bus tickets and for the gas. This past week I feel that I have spent more money that I usually would because we had to go get cleaning supplies. The mission money can go to food, computer time, cleaning supplies, and buses. Primarily it goes to food and buses. We are in charge of breakfast which usually consists of cereal, I bought some pancake mix that we still need to go get eggs for. Elder Tucker hates huevos so he's just never really bought them. Strange verdad? He doesn't like eggs at all. Hopefully we can go get some today. Everyday we eat lunch at a members house. We usually eat with the same member every other week. The food is good here, usually consists of beans, tortillas, and rice. We get lucky when there is meat. We actually had macaroni and cheese this week and it was delicious. One thing that's way
different about here is that they put chiles and chile sauce on everything. Doesn't matter what were eating there is always chile sauce available. I love it.
All of the members try and tease me by offering me chiles and hot sauce, but I always surprise them by always eating the most picoso sauces and chiles they have and eating a lot of it. They think it's so strange that a gringo likes chiles and hot sauce as much as I do. They always say that usually the gringo missionaries never eat the picante food and when they do they never like it. They are in awe that I can eat equally spicy and sometimes more spicy things as they can. I love it, its so funny watching their faces as I eat chile after chile and drowning my food with the spiciest sauce they have :). Dinner is at 9 o' clock and Elder Tucker and I usually eat out. One thing that makes me sad is that we can't go to taco stands... their not sanitary and that's how missionaries get sick. There is a hamburger place on the corner of our street that has really really good burgers and fries. An Hombre and his Esposa run it out of their garage and its so good! We also order pizza every Thursday from dominoes. A large pizza is 89 pesos (about $6.70) on Thursday while on the other days of the week the large pizzas are like 140 pesos ($10.54). Even with the pizza they make sure that there are hot sauce packets that come along with them.
It's good. There are a lot of different places that deliver here. You've got dominoes (which is the only pizza place from home here), subway delivers, there are plenty of taco places that deliver, and all of them deliver on little scooters. It's awesome, it's like out of a movie! One of the best things about delivery here is that you are not expected to tip. If we aren't that hungry we usually just eat a little bit of cereal before we go to bed. But usually we are starving by 9 because we had la comida at 2. Oh yeah that's another strange thing about here, lunch is called la comida or "the food". The food is great here but let's just say sometimes my stomach is struggling getting used to it. I just take some pills and its all good.
We do Laundry every P-Day. All we do is take it down to a landromat and they wash and dry it for us and then we pick up our laundry the next day, for about a hundred pesos (about $7.50). Computer time is on P-days as well. There are places all over the city were people go and pay to use computers. The computers are nice. The only thing that I don't like about them is that the key boards are Spanish!
It's difficult to type letters in English and I don't know Spanish well enough yet to type in Spanish. The worst part is that the back space is tiny so I keep hitting the key right next to it that makes me go back to the start of the sentence. It costs about 10 pesos an hour to use the computer.
The humidity is a little different to get used to. But honestly it isn't as hot as I thought it would be. There usually is a nice breeze and clouds. It does get hot because we walk around so much and people's houses are hot but really I expected to be drowning in sweat and being miserable all of the time, so its really not that bad here in Tepatitlán. Apparently may is the hottest month here and I passed it so that's pretty sweet too. It also rains here almost every day. It doesn't rain nonstop like I thought it might during their rainy season but it rains for about a half an hour each day super super super hard. Its so cool. The streets are like flooded and its legit like a fast river flowing down the street. Tepa is like a huge hill anyways so when it rains the streets are legit like a fast river. The streets are tiny as well so it gets kind of crazy with the traffic and everything. But the people here are just used to it, back at home people would be freaking out with how much water and how dangerous it would be to be out on the road. Not here though, it's just an everyday thing!
Elder Tucker is awesome! We get along so great and we just joke and laugh all the time! He's a way cool guy and really helps me out with everything without making me feel dumb or inferior to him. He's way
cool. We haven't fought at all and he's not a big slob, he's not annoying, and he's not too weird. I love hearing about his stories through his mission. He's an awesome guy and I am sure I'll be seeing him again after his mission. Its way cool that he lives like 15 minutes away from me. Speaking of which, his Mom wants to swing by and talk to you and mom about your sons. I gave him our home phone number so you should be expecting a call within this next week. I've also decided Xochitl needs to marry him. His full name is Kevin David Tucker, he graduated in 2009 and he is 22. There might be a possibility that Susanna knows him but she probably would've been a freshmen when he was a senior. Elder Tucker is also very excited to have Fourth of July with an American... I don't know how much celebrating we'll actually be doing but I guess it'll be pretty spectacular.
The Spanish is slowly coming, but still coming. Its hard when I want to participate in lessons but I can't communicate fully what I want to say... but it will come. This week a couple just started talking to me on the bus about me being a missionary and such, Elder Tucker had to sit somewhere else so it was
just me talking to them. They were really nice and really were good people. They belonged to a church called the "Lights around the world" or something like that. It was kind of cool having a conversation with people without the help of Elder Tucker (even though they did do most of the talking). The people are pretty nice here, people say good morning, good afternoon, and goodnight all the time. We get called gringos and some other racial slurs on a daily basis but I just smile and wave at them and they smile and wave back. Its fun! The members don't have much but they always give us the best food they have and
they have us use the nicest plates and silverware out of anyone. It's really sweet and nice of them.
Loving it here, were going to start the rest of our P-Day soon, which will consist of haircuts, bowling (wahoo!), and were going to go see a really creepy tree that has some historical meaning that I'll tell you about more next week!
Hasta en 23 meses!
Elder Summers