Merry Christmas! It definitely doesn´t feel like Christmas here, but I guess we´ll see what actually happens the 25th!

My new area is really hot...really hot. In my last area I could get away with reusing my outfits a few times, but that quickly changed when I moved here. Makeup doesn´t happen anymore either, it´s too much of a hassle.

I have come to the conclusion that the life in the MTC is nothing like the life in the field...So many things are different! The MTC was a lie! haha! Just kidding, no but seriously, so many things are different...For example..I had water in the MTC...here we need to wait for a ´water truck´ to deliver the water and we haven´t seen him for 4 days...so we've just been buying lots of bottled water.

I had a pretty embarrassing experience this week...so we were eating tortillas with jabanero peppers and I felt a mosquito on my face...so I went to swat at it and I accidently brushed my eye. My eyes have never burned that much! I rinsed my eye out of 15 minutes with water from a huge judge that had dirt sitting on the bottom...haha, oh joy! I was also pratically blind for the rest of the day because I only had one contact in. But it was pretty interesting, that´s for sure.

Also, we have a really nice neighbor named Jesus who lives on the floor under us. He´s a member of our ward here and he is also a chef...and he´s always cooking for us! He´s so great! He also contacted our families this week to schedule times for us to Skype. I can only imagine my sister and brother trying to figure out who this Mexican man was who d to talk to my mom about me here in Mexico! I´ll have to ask them what actually happened on the 25th when we talk, but the way he explained it was super funny.

We have several people with baptismal dates! The closest one is for the 28th, her name is Selena and in the opinions of my companions she is ´bien fashion´ haha! She´s 60 and she still likes to get her nails done and wear super high heels. She´s super nice though and apparently she´s been listening to the missionaries for 3 years and she´s finally made the decision to get baptized! I´m so grateful I´ll be able to get to know her a little more while I´m in this area! 

Also, the people here can´t pronounce my name! haha! It´s pretty funny. They call me Hermana War, World, Wart, basically whatever comes out. They prefer to call me Hermana Barrio haha! I explained that ¨Barrio¨ in English is ¨Ward¨ so it actually works out quiet nicely. My zone gave me this nickname in the MTC so I guess now I´ll actually be using it!

I also received some forwarded letters from the MTC from some of my friends! Thanks so much, letters are great! I hope everyone at home is having a great time and is enjoying their Christmas!

This week has been interesting for sure! Two nights ago my companion and I received a call telling us that we were going to change areas and that we´d each be getting new companions. Out of the 12 weeks of training that I have, I completed 5 with my trainer and now I´m going to finish the other 7 with my new trainer and her trainee....which happens to be my companion from the MTC! Which apparently never happens! I´m so excited to work with them! I worked really well with my companion in the MTC and I learned a lot from her. My trainer in my first area was nice and I learned a lot of things from her, first of which was patience. Haha. She was pretty good at getting people to do stuff for her, which isn´t necessary bad, it´s just not what I was used to....we´ll leave it at that. 

I´m in my new area right now and the hill we have to climb up everyday is of the devil. I don´t know too much about my area, but a lady in my old area did start to cry when I told her where I was going ( Chilpancingo, Galeana) because there are a lot of things that happen here. I´ll spare everyone the details, but I´ll be sure to be safe. The sun is super strong in my area and I am going to be black when I return home in 2015. There is no doubt about it.

Christmas is just around the corner! This is my first Christmas away from home so we´ll see how it goes, but I have high hopes! I´m trying to stay positive, because Christmas is really about having the Spirit of Christ, so if I just concentrate on my purpose as a missionary I should be fine. Feliz Navidad!

So we bought the tank that we needed for our hot water and some really nice members of the ward come over the install it! But the next morning when we tried to use it, it didn´t work the way we thought it would and the bathroom reeked of gas...apparently the tubes in the walls are super old and have holes in them...so that´s a comforting thought, back to cold water.
I officially respect anyone who has ever served a mission. There are so many things that one needs to adjust to. Always being with someone, learning a new language, being in a completely different culture, ect. It´s definitely not easy, but I wouldn´t be anywhere else.
This week ate dinner with a really weathly family here in Mexico and by wealthy I mean they have a car and a successful business. There are so many things I took for granted at home and now I´m super grateful for everything I had at home. Anyways, they offered to make 5 turkey dinners for our most humble families for Christmas. This family really knows what Christmas is about and we have some many family we´re teaching that literally have nothing so I couldn´t help it, I just started to cry right at the dinner table...how embarrassing. But anyways, I can´t wait to see the faces of these families when they receive their Christmas dinner.
One of these families will be the family of a little boy Cristofer. We are teaching him and one day we went to his house to teach him a lesson and he was working on some homework so we decided to help him out a bit. He needed to make a food pyramid but didn´thave any of the tools to do it...he had a dirty piece of paper, three colored pencils (two without tips) and the smallest eraser...so my companion and I went to the papeleria and bought him some decent colored pencils, a pencil sharpener, erasers, ect so he could actually do his assignment. It was such a humbling experience to be able to help him out a little bit.
Side note...I had a little scary experience with a mexican man the other day. He came up to us and started talking to us, but we were a little late for an appointment so I told him we had to go...we shook hands out of courtesy and he wouldn´t let my hand go! I yanked it away and sort of trotted away...fast. It was an interesting experience. The men here are a little disrespectful sometimes too...it´s sort of sad, but there are a lot of really nice people too, so I guess you can´t win them all!

Until next week!

Our humble tree! In U.S dollars comes to about 3 bucks...lol

This bread is amazing...it´s in the shape of a turtle and it´s best with honey.

So this is me wearing one of the costumes that the people wear when there´s a parade here! It´s pretty cool to see!

Enchilada!

This is me in one of the bed´s of an inactive lady. She´s awesome! He name is Concepcion.

Well, my companion and I are trying to find a new place to live. We have an angry mal tempered neighbor... I have opened the door to her yelling in her fierce latina accent about how my companion and I use all the water. There are two problems... one that our shower head always drips water and we can do nothing to stop it. The other is that there is a lever outside our apartment that we need to pull to fill the tank on the roof but we never know when to pull it again (to stop the flow of water) and the neighbor thinks we always are wasting it or overfilling the tank so it pours out. Hopefully by January we´ll have a new place. There´s also the slightest chance that she´s anti Mormon...but that´s ok, we just try to be nice to her.

After every lesson my companion and I teach we offer to help the person with anything they may need help with. One lady actually accepted our offer! The next day we went to help her clean her kitchen. Something I´ve noticed about the area that I´m in is that the people don´t use paper towel to clean...they don´t use chemicals either! I´m pretty decent at cleaning...in the U.S, but here I found myself a little clueless. I spent twice the amount of time trying to clean her kitchen as I would have in the U.S. because I had less to work with. The people here use dishwasher powder to clean almost everything, it´s actually quite interesting...I did swipe two napkins off her table to do some deep cleaning on a griddle. (Shh!) It´s not that the way the people clean here is bad, it´s just different to what I´m use to.

The members in the ward here want me to start giving English lessons! I´ve never taught English before so this should be an interesting experience. If anyone has any advice shoot me a message because I´m a little clueless to be honest. I´ve been trying to teach my companion some English but whenever I say anyhing It´s like I´m speaking Japanese, and it goes right over her head. With time, hopefully we´ll both learn each other´s languages.

So Tuesday we went to teach a less active member of the church (there are about 900 members in our area, but less than 100 are active so we´ve been visiting a lot of inactives trying to get them back to church) and she told us that she wouldn´t be able to go to church because she needed to find a job on the weekends to provide for her family. Well I don´t know why, but I promised her (in my shoddy Spanish) that if she made a commit to attend church with her family with faith in Christ.....that she´s be able to find employment....I left her house feeling extremely responsible for this lady! My companion and I have been fasting and praying for her and her family.

I´ve never fasted or prayed this much in my life. I think in the three weeks I´ve been here I´ve fasted with my companion 3 times already, each for 24 hours! This really is the Lord´s work. I´m just here to do what needs to be done. I´m literally in instrument in His hands. Until next week!