Bugs, Chicken Brain and Working Hard

Dear Mom,

Yes, it is hard. It's crazy hard. I'm  hating the fact that I have bugs on me all of time. But it's all worth it. The work I'm doing right now, will make up for all the hard times I'm having. I love you guys. All of the people I'm teaching are so great. They are tough, this language is tough, translating everything is tough. But I'm starting to get a little better. Poco a poco, little by little. Cada dia, every day. Guess what I ate a few days ago, a chicken's brain. Not the best taste in the world. But not bad at the same time. Pupusas are actually pretty good. I'm going to learn how to make them and I'll show you guys sometime. I love you all, your prayers are heard all of the time. 

Sincerely,

Elder Medina

                                        My first cowboy hat

                                                   Market

The only water we are allowed to drink

First Week in El Salvador

My Companion Elder Vasquez

Dear Familia,

I have to say, this kinda stinks not knowing spanish. Half the time I can't understand what's being taught. But when I do, I feel so accomplished. I've seen more cockroaches then I'd like to and have had about half a million crawl all over me. They seem to like that they have "roommates". For example, I bought a box of cornflakes. The next day, I went to pour a bowl of them. Instead of a nice toy rolling into my bowl. A huge, nasty, fat, disgusting, flipping cockroach landed in my bowl. I was instantly feeling super sick. Because if I didn't see it, I would have eaten the bowl. Other than all of that, and my super bad stomach. I love it here. The people have a great love for the  work and the gospel. Everyone is so nice and so helpful. Even if a person isn't a member of the mormon church, everyone here has deep roots in religion. Which makes it harder to teach them sometimes. But, it helps too. Me and my companion are, at the moment, teaching a young man about 20 yrs. old about the gospel. He has already accepted the invitation of baptism. We are just working towards the baptism date. He is super excited. We have also been rejected for the invitation by others(I hope I spelled that right) for baptism.  But everyone here is pretty awesome. My companion is pretty cool. His name is Elder Vasquez. He knows predominatly spanish. A bit of english. So it's hard at times. But it's ok. I met Elder Flake, he does remember me. I like him a lot.  Congrats to Clay and Josevy! Olivia, good job on your running stuff. Just remember, work your tail off. I love you all. Do you know how hard it is to not be able to eat bacon? It really stinks. Oh and ordering food in Spanish is super hard too. The bus system here is insane. I haven't had any gang related problems yet. So that's good. Be good all of you.

                                    Flying from Mexico to El Salvador

                                                        Airport

                                         Culture shock and so tired

                                                El Salvador Temple

                                          President and Sister Glazier

                                                Home sweet home          

                                                   Sunday Lunch

                                      First night sleeping arrangements

                                              The neighborhood

                                        Looking outside our window

Hi mom! I have safely arrived in El Salvador. I slept well and had only one new bug bite. I hope all of you guys are alright and have a good day.

El Salvador, Here I come!

Thankful to have seen a friendly face.I ran into Lexie Gatherum the first week I got to the MTC!

                                                                Last day in Mexico

 Dear Mom,

Today is basically finishing packing and send some emails and leave. Packing is completely done, I've been packing since Saturday. And I'll admit, I have no idea how to pack anything in life. I wish I had my mom to help me again. However, I do feel I did an acceptable job of packing. I got a priesthood blessing last night, I had a certain Elder do this. His name is Elder Birch. He gave me the blessing, as he put his hands on my head, I had never felt the spirit that strong in my life. The tears automatically felt like a hose streaming and didn't stop. I feel so much better and I feel ready to bail out and give it all of I've got in the field. Guess where I'm going tomorrow? The El Salvador temple! I'm so excited and happy! My shoes are shined, my hair is cut and I'm ready to go. I will send you as many pictures as I can while I'm out there. I love you mom. I will give it all I've got.

Sincerely,

Elder Medina

Last Week in Mexico, Conference, and Lava Lava's

                       Watching Conference. Elder Hunt (Center) is From St. George  and flew out with with me to Mexico. He is also the teacher of backflips!

                                                  Elder Becker

                                            Me with Elder Birch

                                  Elder Jones (My MTC Companion)

                                      Elder Ma'alona and ElderCox

                                                Elder Withers

                                         Beautiful Mexico flowers

                                            Too lazy to lay down

 

                                               Lava Lava Day!

Dear Mom,

I am still doing pretty dandy as far as money goes. The only thing that has cost quite a bit has been dry cleaning my suits. I still have a pretty good chunk left over for my luggage fees and other stuff. That is what I was going to do too. Guess what tuesday is now, Lava-lava tuesday for my district. Since we have a Samoan guy here, he lets us wear his lava-lavas. First come first serve thing going on but hey, these are pretty awesome. Comfy and so cool, I may buy one for myself when I get home. Or something like that I dunno. I am not for sure when I leave the MTC, I think I leave on Monday night. I think, they haven't put up our flight schedule yet, they will on thursday. I heard that the Federal Government was shut down to try to get money for the nation again. Not the best idea I think. There will be some serious reporcussions from that decision. But oh well, I'm not the president. How's the family? I'll tell you what, this week was hard, I had a hard time with missing Diego the most. But with the help of a great companion and an amazing district and zone leaders and my district. I was able to pull through it. A whole lot of prayers were said during this week for you guys. I hope you all are doing ok. Today was our last time going to the Mexico City temple. I was super sad but excited too. I can't wait to see the El Salvador temple. I am proud to say that I am starting to better understand the whole session in Spanish. I am so happy how my language is coming. I can't write worth the life of me though. It's like I'm taking a test, I second guess myself. But speaking it feels natural. It feels good.

Conference was amazing. Imagine the whole high school auditorium filled with missionaries watching conference. It was the greatest most neat experience in the world. I watched all of the sessions without falling asleep at all. On top of that, I got a whole lot of great notes from it. I am sad that I'm going to leave this district. I love all of them, but I know that I'm going somewhere else with more people whom I will love just the same. I love you guys, I hope you all are ok. And that guy Olivia's talking to is a great guy. I do know him, and I know he'll be cool. Have him teach Olivia spanish... Ha ha, tell him I said hi. I'll try to get some souveniers.

Haircuts, Back Flips and a Little Espanol

Dear Mom,

My stomach is still kicking it just fine. And actually, a day after I sent you that e-mail the letter came. Sorry about the scripture it is, Alma 18:17. By far my favorite. Of course CV got stomped, oh well, I'm not in high school anymore I can't say anything right? I hope you'll be ok, but I'm glad that you guys are all alright. Ok now I have a crazy story for you, I have got this elder in my district. He got his haircut here (I did today as well, a picture will be enclosed). He was happy it was cut nice. Until he found what the hairstylist had missed, which he didn't notice for a week, she failed to cut the hair on the back of his neck. He go so mad, it was hilarious, he jumped up out of dinner, stormed to the dorms, grabbed MY shaving cream and his towel. The whole time fuming. My favorite thing he said  was this, "first, my stomach, second, my language, now my dang NECK!" We were all dying! The whole way back to the classroom, samething, fuming and being mad that his neck looked like "Wolverine". We shaved his neck and we got some pictures of it. Our district leader looked at him, heard the story and said "let's just leave it for a day, let him bask in his unknownglyness", we all laughed and he got red-faced. He got it shaved though now he's all happy. My hair I think looks fairly decent for the spanish I did know (I asked to her to shave my neck). Today Elder Hunt, the one who I flew out with, promised me that he would teach me how to do a backflip. So that's what I'm gonna do. Go for a run, and learn how to do a backflip and finish up with a devotional today. My suits are getting dry-cleaned right now. 180 pesos for my suits and the pants that go with it. That is equivelant to $13.68 in American money. Crazy huh? I miss everyone too. I keep expecting in the morning to seeing Diego or you or dad. The other night I had a dream that dad came home from work and woke me up playing modern warfare 3 (he did do that by the way). I woke up to, instead, fireworks (they light them off here for no apparent reason) and police sirens. I was kinda mad, mainly because I was awake at 2 in the morning. Now for a little spanish for you.

Hoy, yo y mi compañero. Fue al cortar nuestras pelo. Los lederes del zona estan aqui tambien. Me encanta el CCM. Mis maestros es muy amoroso a mi y mi districto.

Ok that's ok for now, I can speak it ok, but typing and writing it is a whole different ball game. My afternoon teacher, Hermana Velasquez, came in and saw what we had drawn in our free time. You will see it in the picture I will send you. She laughed and saw that we had started our quote board, we put quotes that are inspirational or funny. It depends on what we feel. But, she just laughed again and told us in spanish how much she loved our district. We now have what we call el dia de las galletas on thursday. Our teachers love it. Our branch president loves how we are growing so close as a district. I do too, they feel like my family away from my family. I have a love for them, along with our investigators. They are teachers acting a proxies for the actual ones. But my morning teacher, Hermano Carrillo, feels that my and my companion, Elder Jones, are ready for an actual one and is setting up a time for her to come in for us to teach her. I'm scared but excited too. We had what is called TRC where we have local members come in and ask us questions. I, to my suprise, understood a vast majority of what was being asked and what was being said. I'm so happy with how I'm progressing with the language. However, the grammar for spanish makes as much sense as a food label. So confusing. It drives me nuts. It gives me headaches sometimes just thinking about it. But I know that the Lord is, and will help me through this. Happy birthday mom. You are the greatest mom in the world and I love you more than anything and the role you have played in my life. You will always be the number one, cheerleader, mom, friend, and everything I can or will ever need in my life. I love you and I promise you that you'll be ok. I'll tell you what I've come to learn here, just have complete unwavering faith. It has helped me and I know it will help you. I love you mom. I can't wait to hear from you again.

Sincerely,

Elder Medina

                                                    Haircut time!

                          I sure wish I knew how to tell her how I wanted it

                                   Waiting for their turn. Not excited!

                                      Inspirational quotes for the day

One of our Spanish teachers

                                          Elder Hunt's backflips